agawu, kofi. stravinsky analysis

Society for Music Theory

Stravinsky's "Mass" and Stravinsky AnalysisAuthor(s): V. Kofi AgawuReviewed work(s):Source: Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 139-163Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society for Music TheoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/745933 .Accessed: 10/12/2011 19:39

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Stravinsky's Mass and Stravinsky Analysis

V. Kofi Agawu

A recent debate concerning the nature of pitch organization in Le Sacre du printemps has brought to the fore central issues in Stravinsky analysis.1 The exchange between Allen Forte and Richard Taruskin epitomizes the broad division between tonal- ists and atonalists, between analysts who hear in the Rite an in- evitable prehistory and therefore develop methods to explain these allegiances, and analysts for whom the radical and mod- em are uppermost, and who therefore prefer methods that deal with the work "on its own terms."2 However stark the dichot- omy appears conceptually, however, its execution rarely suc- ceeds in maintaining consistently each of its perspectives. On the one hand, advocates of atonality are obliged to deal with the uncontroversial contention that no music can be discussed without some reference to its historical circumstances, even where the relationship between the work and its predecessors is an essentially negative one. On the other hand, an analysis whose extent is the detailing of a work's sources, elements, procedures, and gestures, and which makes no attempt to explain

I wish to thank Rhian Samuel, Richard Smith, Richard Taruskin, and Arnold Whittall for their detailed and challenging comments on an earlier version of this essay.

'See Richard Taruskin, "Letter to the Editor," Music Analysis 5 (1986), 313-320, and Allen Forte, "Letter to the Editor in Reply to Richard Taruskin," Music Analysis 5 (1986), 321-337.

2Joseph Straus, "Stravinsky's Tonal Axis," Journal of Music Theory 26 (1982), 263.

how these function together to create a unified (or disunified) and coherent (or incoherent) whole, is equally limited.3

3Although I have postulated a broad, dichotomous relationship between Stravinsky analysts, the actual trends offer a multiplicity of approaches. It is now widely acknowledged that the first significant breakthrough came with Ar- thur Berger's article, "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky" (Per- spectives of New Music 2 [1963], 11-42), not only for its clear recognition of the problems of syntactic organization in Stravinsky, but also for its demonstration of ways in which some of these problems might be resolved. One line of descent from Berger may be traced to Pieter van den Toorn's The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983) and Taruskin's pair of articles, "Chernomor to Kaschei: Harmonic Sorcery; or, Stravinsky's 'Angle'," Journal of the American Musicological Society 38 (1985), 72-142 and "Chez Petrouchka: Harmony and Tonality chez Stravinsky," Nineteenth-Century Music 10 (1987), 265-286. Van den Toorn provides an exhaustive inventory of Stravinsky's octatonic vocabulary, while Taruskin, in the former study, traces nineteenth-century precedents for Stravinsky's octatonicism and, in the latter, analyzes a whole scene from Pe- trouchka to show that "an octatonic complexe sonore . . . is maintained as a stable point of reference governing the whole span of [the] composition" (p. 267). Of the other theoretical formulations, Allen Forte's The Harmonic Orga- nization of "The Rite of Spring" (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978) develops an approach rooted in set theory, thereby suggesting an implicit synchronic connection with other early twentieth-century masters; see also Charles M. Joseph, "Structural Coherence in Stravinsky's Piano-Rag- Music," Music Theory Spectrum 4 (1982), 76-91 for a direct application of Forte's method. A provocative pair of articles by Joseph Straus, "A Principle of Voice Leading in the Music of Stravinsky," Music Theory Spectrum 4 (1982), 106-124 and "Stravinsky's Tonal Axis," Journal of Music Theory 26 (1982), 261-290, suggest ways in which harmony and voice leading function in

140 Music Theory Spectrum

What the Forte-Taruskin debate dramatizes most vividly is the difficulty of generalization with regard to all of Stravinsky's oeuvre, given its unpredictable, chameleonic style of evolution. For even Pieter van den Toorn's rigorous and comprehensive demonstration of octatonic consistency in Stravinsky un- dervalues what Schenker calls Zusammenhang-coherence -or, more specifically, "connection," the ultimate indicator of

dynamism both in tonal and (arguably) in atonal music.4 In

pre-serial Stravinsky, drawing on comments made by Stravinsky himself, as- pects of Gestalt psychology as applied to music by Leonard B. Meyer, and the descriptive apparatus of Forte. Some of the difficulties in Straus's formulations are addressed by Taruskin in "Stravinsky's 'Angle"' and by David Schulenberg in "Modes, Prolongations, and Analysis," Journal of Musicology 5 (1986), 303-329. Among analytical offerings, William E. Benjamin's "Tonality without Fifths: Remarks on the First Movement of Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments," In Theory Only 2/11-12 (1976), 53-70 and 3/2 (1977), 9-31 provides a wide-ranging but at the same time rigorous exploration of several basic issues in Stravinsky analysis, notably the relationship between "deep" and "surface" structures. Benjamin's study is also one of the few that makes effective use of recomposition. Robert P. Morgan's "Dissonant Prolon- gation: Theoretical and Compositional Precedents," Journal of Music Theory 20 (1976), 49-91 develops an insight of Schenker's into a theory of prolongation of non-triadic sonorities in the music of Schubert, Liszt, Wagner, and Scriabin. Arnold Whittall's Musical Analysis: Descriptions and Distinctions

(Inaugural Lecture in the Faculty of Music, King's College London, 1982) and "Music Analysis as Human Science? Le Sacre du printemps in Theory and Practice," Music Analysis 1 (1982), 33-53 initiate a pragmatic turn in Stravinsky analysis, proposing a synthesis of the most powerful explanatory methods currently available. Despite the considerable intuitive appeal of ideas of stratification, interlock, and synthesis, Edward T. Cone's "Stravinsky: The Progress of a Method," Perspectives of New Music 1/1 (1962), 18-26 has not yet elicited much of a response, partly because the concepts are particularly sensitive to, and dependent upon, context, and partly because the dimensions they broach, namely rhythm and texture, remain undervalued by contemporary theorists. But see Christopher Hasty's discussion of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments in "On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in Twentieth-Century Music," Music Theory Spectrum 8 (1986), 58-74, which profitably extends a line of discussion initiated by Cone.

4Heinrich Schenker, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, Vol. 2 (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1926), 12; "Resumption of Urlinie Considerations," in Sylvan

spite of token gestures in that direction-Chapter 12 of van den Toor's book is entitled "dominant-tonic progression"-there is no attempt to build on previous work in which the status of diminutions in Stravinsky's music is considered.5 To skirt the issue of so-called "pitch classes of priority" may be a convenient analytical strategy for the Rite, but it does injustice to a later work such as the Mass, whose studied archaism resists fac-

Sol Kalib, "Thirteen Essays from the Three Yearbooks Das Meisterwerk in der Musik by Heinrich Schenker: An Annotated Translation" (Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1973), Vol. 2,164.

5The most frequently cited discussion of the operation of diminutions in Stravinsky's music may be found in Schenker's "Resumption of Urlinie Con- siderations," which contains the first voice-leading graph ever published of a Stravinsky piece, the first 16 measures of the Concerto for Piano and Wind In- struments. Assessing the significance of this analysis, Milton Babbitt wrote in 1964: "It is as symptomatic a commentary on the climate of musical discourse as it is a considerable irony that Schenker's analysis of only 16 measures of the Piano Concerto, for all that it bristles with normative irrelevancies, provided the most revealing insight into the procedures of Stravinsky's composition. His work suggested further modes of analysis while, not incidentally, demonstrat- ing that the path was not backward but forward to an extension of certain means of prolongation and continuation which provided a basis for increasing the span of certain traditionally non-stable, thus non-extensible, conforma- tions. If the rhythmic texture superficially suggested Bach, the dynamics of pitch progression were suggestive only of a future in sound and in design, and in the means of motivating such a rhythmic texture from different causes and with very different effects" (Milton Babbitt, "Remarks on the Recent Stravinsky," Perspectives of New Music 2/2 [1964], 35-55; reprinted in Perspectives on Schoenberg and Stravinsky, ed. Benjamin Boretz and Edward T. Cone [Prin- ceton: Princeton University Press, 1968], 165-185; emphasis added). What Babbitt merely asserted has been given fuller demonstration by Morgan in "Dissonant Prolongation," a study that is however not restricted to Stravinsky. Other significant demonstrations of the nature of voice leading in Stravinsky may be found in the following works: Adele T. Katz, Challenge to Musical Tra- dition: A New Concept of Tonality (New York: Knopf, 1945), 294-349- which, curiously, is not even mentioned by van den Toorn in The Music of Igor Stravinsky; Allen Forte, Contemporary Tone Structures (New York: Columbia University Teacher's College, 1955); Felix Salzer, Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music (New York: Charles Boni, 1952; reprinted by Dover, 1962); and, most recently, Straus, "A Principle of Voice Leading."

Stravinsky's Mass and Analysis 141

ile categorization into a diatonic, octatonic, or octatonic- diatonic grid.6 This is not to underplay the value of van den Toor's insight that octatonic collections permeate apparently unrelated Stravinskian surfaces, but merely to point out that the apparently rigorous theoretical demonstration of stylistic consistency still leaves room for-one might say requires- further synthesis and integration in analytical application.

The aim of the present study is to describe the principal methods of pitch organization in a single work of Stravinsky's, the Mass, a work which has not been much treated in the recent Stravinsky literature.7 I should indicate at the outset that my task is analytical, not theoretical. The fact that analysis involves "the close and systematic study of individual compositions by reference to a set of technical principles which are coherent and comprehensive"8 is sufficient indication of the necessarily dialectical interplay between theory and analysis, but it is not an implicit denial of the possibility for emphasis within the analyst's plot. Thus I stress Schenker's idea of "connection," mani- fest in three conventional categories, cadence, diminution, and

6These categories are culled from Berger's "Problems of Pitch Organiza- tion in Stravinsky" by van den Toorn, for whom they provide the most effective classification scheme for "confronting the question of consistency, identity, and distinction in Stravinsky's music" (The Music of Igor Stravinsky, xv).

7Composed between 1944 and 1948 (the Kyrie and the Gloria were finished in 1944), the Mass was first performed in 1948 under the baton of Ernst Anser- met at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on October 27, 1948. It is scored for two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, and a cho- rus of men's voices (tenors and basses) and children's voices (descants and al- tos). Basic background information may be found in Robert Craft, "Stravinsky's Mass: a Notebook" in Igor Stravinsky, ed. Edwin Corle (New York: Duell, Sloane, and Pearce, 1949), 201-206, and in Eric Walter White, Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966; 2nd ed. 1979), 446-450. Of considerable interest are two early crit- ical reactions to the piece, Richard F. Goldman, "Current Chronicle," The Musical Quarterly 35 (1949), 451-458; and Joseph Kerman, "Progress Report on Stravinsky," The Hudson Review 3 (1950), 124-131.

8Whittall, Musical Analysis, 2.

prolongation, each of which is not merely applicable to the Mass but, further, provides the most effective tool for reading the dynamic sense of the passage in question. By taking my lead from Schenker-a lead that goes in directions not necessarily advocated by him-I seem to be arguing the case for a tonal rather than an atonal Mass. It is not on such a sweeping and simplistic declaration that my argument turns, however. The tension between "old" and "new" which inevitably confronts Stravinsky analysts is an important motivation here too, but it should not obstruct the central task of suggesting ways in which, to put it simply, we might hear or learn to hear the Mass.9

CADENCE

A central articulating device, one which orients the sense of various segments of the Mass, is the cadence. It serves to close off numerous sections of the piece, not merely as a "terminat- ing convenience" (to borrow van den Toorn's suggestive term) but as the most important element of an implicit closing mechanism. There are two complementary properties of cadence, a syntactical arrangement and what might be called a gestural sense. Both are necessary to ensure that not all V-I successions,

9By rating the explanatory potential of Schenker's Stravinsky analysis so highly, I have not overlooked the subversive nature of his enterprise-namely, to show that Stravinsky's Piano Concerto exhibits "bad writing," that it "does not merit the name music," and also that Stravinsky's disregard for "connection" results in a piece which is "thoroughly bad, inartistic, and unmusical"

("Resumption of Urlinie Considerations," in Kalib, Vol. 2, 212-216). We need not, however, share Schenker's aesthetic preferences in order to accept the explanatory value of his theories. Adorno's essentially one-sided compara- tive study of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, Philosophy of Modern Music (trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster, New York: Seabury Press, 1980), considers the problematic aesthetic-technical conjunction in several places. See also Hasty, "On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in Twentieth- Century Music."


for example, are counted as perfect cadences, since temporal placement, register, rhythm, and duration, among other factors, contribute to the articulation of a sense of closure. In conventional tonal music, these factors may be said to be in equilib- rium, but in Stravinsky they are constantly played with, played off against each other, or retained as Gestalten of an outdated common practice.

In Example 1 are assembled ten cadences which provide a basis for study of Stravinsky's cadential practice (the fact that the majority of these cadences are from the Kyrie is a not in- significant factor in the later discussion of tonal orientation).10 In Example la, the terminal sonority is an F-major chord in 6

4

position. To acknowledge F as the pitch class of priority is to recognize that connection or voice leading plays an important role in our perception of the structural elements of the cadence. Specifically, since three of the four voices in the final bar are stationary, the highly implicative 4-3 motion in the tenor is thrown into relief. To refuse to acknowledge the priority of F simply because the chord is in 6 position, traditionally a dissonance, is to misunderstand the passage, for there is clearly no other pitch class of priority on the same level of structure. But this does not mean that such tonal meanings are simple. On the contrary, it is the multiplicity of meanings that most significantly characterizes such passages. In this context, one might wish to hear, in addition to the primary F, a secondary pitch of priority, C, by virtue, first, of its function as bass of the conclud-

'?In this and all subsequent examples, I have used a form of the hierarchic notation stemming from Schenker that is by now standard. Roman numerals denote harmonic function while capped arabic numerals (1, 2, and so forth) denote melodic function. All extracts are located by both measure number and rehearsal number. It goes without saying that hierarchic notation is used here, not in the manner of a fundamentalist, but in largely ad hoc ways. That such use is nonnegotiable for the analyst of Stravinsky's music will become clearer below.

ing sonority, and second, of its continuity throughout the entire opening phrase of the Kyrie.11

A conventional voice-leading interpretation of this cadence would ordinarily require numerous quotation marks in order to make its point, but at the same time it is difficult not to hear these overtly tonal connections (see reduction in Example la). In Example lb, the cadence in Bl, is fully articulated in the voice parts as shown in the reduction, although here too the ter- minating sonority in full texture is a 6 chord. The priority of BL, however, is not in doubt. In Example lc consistent stepwise motion or "connection" leads to a terminal sonority that can be heard as the dominant seventh of G, arrived at by stepwise motion in four of the voices (a quasi-resolution is given in brack- ets). It is as if a goal-oriented progression were cut off in mid- stream, to be resumed later and brought to a satisfactory completion. The timbral and textural disjunction between mm. 15 and 16 contribute to this sense of an abandoned process, this in spite of the retention of pitch class D as link between the two sections. (Subsequent analysis shows that the postponed resolution of this chord, prolonged through the following six measures [16-21], takes place in the final measures of the Kyrie.)12

The syntactical arrangement of each of the cadences considered thus far, while acknowledging the combined roles (norma- tively speaking) of melody and harmony, also suggests that the two parameters do not necessarily have the same perceptual

"The most stimulating recent discussion of multiple as opposed to simple meanings is Charles J. Smith, "The Functional Extravagance of Chromatic Chords," Music Theory Spectrum 8 (1986), 94-139, which, however, refers mainly to a tonal context. Brief remarks on Stravinsky's predilection for such uses may be found in van den Toorn, The Music of Stravinsky, 54-55.

12A modal reading of Example Ic is also possible, and would suggest a II6-V "Phrygian" cadence. Were the seventh over D not so strongly referential, the modal reading might have been preferable to a tonal one. This is only the first of numerous positive conflicts that we will encounter throughout the Mass.


Example 1. Cadences

a. Kyrie, mm. 4-5

n

b. Kyrie, mm. 8-9 I+3 L k I

c. Kyrie, mm. 14-15 []+5

i A . I

e - e i so - le - i-sonson le - i - son.....

-(e lei son. 7: P1 [FJ F - (e) - - lei - son.... __ ;

A A A G: "V("I" , "b2" "1", 2 1

|-bJ - -,l

? \rJ

_ w -C v 9:f - t 7 -b7 6 4 44

F: "V" "I"

d. Kyrie, mm. 24-25 [4] e - lei - son A

Bb:

e. Kyrie, m. 21 W31+6 A II

b7 6

"V" "I"' T

f. Kyrie, mm. 33-34

1 'A J J J

- - ste

e - lei - son

9 ' ^ ti3. ~ "-'r7 r ' 4: ii^ ^ *-L f 9 *-- "2"

A ,, "^ A" A: " 2 "-,"4 1"

A-: "I6" `"V`"4- 3`l

',4 .. D: "V6

D: "V6" "I" Bb: "V" "I"

b.-


Example 1. (cont'd.)

g. Kyrie, mm. 37-38 B+4

t

-&,%, -7- -"8

F: I :j _

i. Sanctus, mm. 67-69 (voices only) 54]+4

1 1

j. Gloria, m. 88 [ 241+5

I ^ Ii.

s ' i r r r Tr in ex - el - sis A - men

3 wi :? I I t

PC ^?^,I , - ._ kM 7- A-~ I ,I&

A: "V" "I" I

D: "IV" ---"I"

I I I I

I


force, and that one day may predominate over the other. Mel- ody, in fact, may be said to lead the ear, even though it retains a particular contextual harmonic identity. To separate melody from harmony is, of course, an analytical convenience, but one which proves useful for distinguishing between a particular syntactical arrangement and the hierarchically based forces of perception that project this syntax.13

In Example ld, the cadence is on A, complete with a voice exchange between bass and tenor (marked by arrows in the diagram). This exchange enables an interpretation of these three chords as a prolongation of A, overlooking for the moment the tonal conflict in the first sonority between C# and C, or between an enharmonic B# (tenor) and B (bass) in the second sonority. What directs the ear, however, is the quasi-3-2-1 descent in the bass, the archetypal cadential gesture which, although tex- turally inverted from conventional tonal practice, is neverthe- less perceptually dominant. Example le involves what Robert Craft has called a "modulation to D."14 Leaving aside for now the complex issue of modulation in Stravinsky's music, we can agree that the pitch class of priority is D. The apparent pandiatonicism of this cadence colors, but does not challenge, its sense of hierarchy, since the combined 7-8 and 2-1 progressions serve to orient the voice leading to D. And the fact that the voices stop short of the final D is significant for reasons of texture, not reasons of voice leading.

Example If describes a cadence in B , arrived at by stepwise chromatic motion in the top voice and descending thirds in the lowest voice. Like previous cadences, this one is marked by conjunct voice leading-not, however, in only two voices, but

13For further discussion of such shifts in perception, see Whittall's analysis of Stravinsky's Serenade in A in Musical Analysis. Whittall also includes some discussion of Stravinsky's predictably contradictory-and for that reason illuminating-comments on the uneasy balance that attaches to the interaction of melody, harmony and rhythm.

4Craft, "Stravinsky's Mass," 204.

in four: (reading from top to bottom) 7-8, 2-1, 4-3 (by octave displacement), and "#2-3 (by enharmonic substitution for 633). Example lg describes a cadence on F, but, unlike previous cadences, its terminal sonority is not a triad but a tetrachord con- sisting of the pitches F, G, B ,, and C. This is set class 4-23 or [0257], significant for its symmetrical intervallic arrangement and, in this context, for its relatively "open" sound, the latter enabling an exploration of tonality-defining intervals such as fourths and fifths. It is a cadence because, as a terminal sonority, it represents a moment of rest, of completion; rhythmic articulation and voice leading secure the cadential function. To accept this function is to accept a fundamental extension of conventional tonal practice in Stravinsky's language. The issue turns on definitions of dissonance and consonance-in particular, whether the terminal sonority of any perfect cadence is not by definition a consonance. Whittall has suggested that certain strategically placed dissonances in the Rite function as focal points, serving to orient structural procedure in ways analogous to focal consonances in conventional tonal music.15 In the Mass, however, there is no consistent use of 4-23 as a cadential sonority; what is important, as we will see later, is its extensive but contextually dissimilar use. The significance of Example lg therefore reaches beyond the individual moment to the work as a whole.

The symmetrical structure of 4-23, although it multiplies the number of potential meanings inherent in the sonority, does not relinquish a sense of hierarchy. In the context of Ex- ample lg, F has priority not only because it is the bass note of the sonority but further, and more important, because the jour- ney to F follows a dual 3-2-1 (bass) and 7-8 ("tenor") course. As in Example ld, the descent enhances rather than contradicts a sense of tonal orientation.

Example lh describes the final cadence of the movement as a dominant-tonic progression in G. The elements of this pro-

15Whittall, "Music Analysis as Human Science?," 35.


gression include the explicit V-I descent of the bass voice, itself approached by way of a precadential subdominant. There are many nondiatonic pitches in this cadence (the flatted third and raised seventh over the dominant are cases in point), but the temporal position as well as the gestural sense confirm that this is a cadence. The picture is less clear when one considers the activity in the accompanying instruments, but the change is one of degree, not of kind. For although the final sonority is a G- major chord in first inversion, the manner in which it is approached and its consonance relative to what precedes it give it the normative status of a consonance.

The notion that the manner in which sonorities are approached is important to their definition as consonances or dissonances, which also lies at the heart of Schenker's discussion of connection in Stravinsky, may be conceptualized in terms of the "foregrounding" of process, by which is meant that consistent voice leading takes perceptual prominence over the actual resultant sonorities. This is a formulation with some intuitive appeal, and it has been invoked in other studies of Stravinsky's music as well as in studies of highly chromatic music, Robert Craft, for example, defends the final cadence of the Kyrie along these lies: "[The movement] concludes on a G 6th, which is approached, one might say justified, from four different cadence tones simultaneously."16 Example li, from the end of the Sanc- tus, provides a vivid illustration of the way in which consistency in voice leading can help to shape a line so that its cadential function is made perceptible. The voice parts, considered in isolation, show two kinds of motion: a pedal E in the soprano, which serves to regulate the activity of the other voices; and predominantly stepwise motion in alto and bass. This makes the final two chords, with the bass leap from dominant to tonic, all the more striking, since the voices have been obviously di- rectional in their approach. That one can describe this as a V-I cadence is not much in doubt. The behavior of the instrumental


parts, however, challenges without negating this sense of cadence by adding to this relatively simple vocal part numerous apparently extraneous notes, including, significantly, a fifth, G- D, to the final A-major chord. It is the bassoon line that retains the explicit element of connection, charting a stepwise ascent C-D-E-F-G-(E/C#), which again serves to orient the voice leading in the direction of the final, hierarchically superior sonority.17

Finally, Example lj interprets the closing bars of the Gloria as a plagal cadence. Its archaic, almost quotational character is mediated by Stravinsky's idiosyncratic vocal part writing, notably the resolution to F# in both "tenor" and "bass." The mo- dernity of the procedure, in other words, lies in its voice leading, while its conventional allegiance derives from the shadow cast by a IV-I progression in D.

Even though the cadences described in Example 1 have been taken out of their larger contexts, the functions ascribed to them are entirely compatible with conventional tonal practice. As we have seen, each perfect cadence includes between one and four elements of idiomatic voice-leading (7-8, 2-i, V-I, and so forth), elements which then interact with other, not necessarily tonally oriented motion. But the temporal placement of these events as well as their gestural sense make it possible to describe them as cadences. The full significance of Stravinsky's

17In this connection, see the response by White to Ansermet's contention that the interpolation of the G-D dyad in the final A-major chord produces a

"literally cacophonous" ending to the Sanctus (Stravinsky, 450). Ansermet ac-

knowledges the compositional logic of the ending-"the fifth may be justified on paper by the movement of parts leading up to the final chord"-but finds the results aurally unconvincing: "Once the auditor tries to analyze the sound, he has no idea what it really means." White answers this by asserting the logic of voice leading without, however, making the observation that the perception of

process may well override that of sonority, in which case Ansermet might have been listening to the "wrong" thing! This is not, of course, an avoidance of the issue of labeling that final sonority, only an argument that by placing process and product in the same continuum, one can conceptualize a hierarchic shift in perception in this particular context.


methods of cadential articulation is a subject too vast to be considered in this essay, but even this brief survey shows that Stravinsky exploits both the syntactical and the gestural components of conventional tonal practice, tilting their balance somewhat in directions different from but not incompatible with such convention.

DIMINUTION

In her study of voice leading in early Stravinsky, Adele Katz draws attention to the frequency with which diminutions char- acterize the surface of Stravinsky's music; of all these it is the neighbor note that plays the most prominent role.18 The Mass affords numerous examples of this and other diminutions, and the purpose of this section is to describe them.

In conventional tonal music, all harmonic events can be explained with reference to three principal diminutions: the passing note (P); the neighbor note (N); and the arpeggiation (Arp.).19 The Gestalten of all three diminutions are present in the Mass too, but it is the neighbor note that occurs most frequently. Example 2a, from the beginning of the Gloria, provides instances of the three types of diminution. In the top voice, the D of the overall E-D-Cl descent may be interpreted as a passing note, and the composing out of this interval as an unfolding-that is, the horizontalization of the E-C# interval contained in the initial sonority. On lower levels of structure, a passing note links the A and C# in the middle voice, just as the

18Katz, Challenge to Musical Tradition, 302-304. 19See Allen Forte and Steven E. Gilbert, Introduction to Schenkerian Anal-

ysis (New York: Norton, 1982), 7-37 for definition and extensive illustration of the functions of these diminutions. There is a problematic fourth, the so-called consonant skip (CS), a sort of "defective" arpeggiation, which need not con- cern us here.

intervening C# between two A's in the lowest voice is an incomplete arpeggiation. The lower voices also afford an example of implicit neighbor-note motion, C# -D-Ct, the attainment of the third coinciding with the conclusion of the 5-4-3 descent from the top voice. There is no need to justify further this interpretation, which seems fairly self-evident. But such an interpretation rests more on the notion of connection than on the consonance- dissonance factor. That is, a passing note is first and foremost a link between two other pitches; only secondarily is it a dissonance between two consonances. Ultimately, of course, the two attributes cannot be separated, but to make this conceptual (and arguably perceptual) distinction is to set into relief Stravinsky's play with convention, a play that does not, however, negate the tradition on which it is built. As with the point made earlier in connection with cadences, the argument here is that the morphology of a passing note is what matters most in Stravinsky, the function occupying a secondary position. Shape, in other words, is dislodged from contrapuntal function.

Example 2b, from the beginning of the Credo, may be heard as a neighbor-note progression. Three sonorities (labeled 1, 2, and 3) are related as follows. Sonorities 1 and 3 are identical, so that sonority 2 represents a departure from a contextual norm. Both duration and articulation make clear the relatively dependent status of sonority 2. But perhaps most important of all is the set of neighbor-note motions, both actual and implied, contained in the 1-2-3 progression as a whole. These include E-F-E, G-F-G, B-C-B, B-A-B, and E-D-E. The implication of this interpretation is that the pitches of priority are those contained in sonorities 1 and 3, with sonority 2 serving to "prolong" that sonority. Again, as far as the sense of the gesture is concerned, there can be no doubt that a neighbor reading is ap- propriate. What is less clear-cut is the status of these sonorities as consonances or dissonances, for here we run into a rich conflict between an idealized, acontextual consonance and contextual consonance, between acoustic consonance and aesthetic


Example 2. Diminutions

a. Gloria, mm. 1-2 [io I

n I 5

II' ;q

b. Credo, mm. 1-3

25.

3 Pa - trem om-ni-po-ten - tem

:; W 2 v S r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~C - sx < r arp.

N .J I ,'

(r r- - r - 1 -- 2 3

F "- --- .-r t'r - 5- r I

c. Credo, mm. 12-16 26 A

I _ - -

- - - - N

d. Credo, mm. 80-81 I 33

I -e- P-' . k

1 2 3

iJ- -

--

t- "-" I1-- I

N i N

4):J -- ut. ; 0:. bn 1fra~ ~ ~ -t fT ' - - - - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ - - - - - -N N N

-ap-<y

I k I



e. Credo, mm. 129-130 [38 + 6

f. Sanctus, mm. 13-14 (bass only) [45 + 3

Ec - cle - si - am Pie - ni, ..... pie - ni ..... sunt

1 ; N N 5; J-CN N

. . "d----

-

|

. *

~~~r o

N

-m-r - N

consonance.20 Considered as isolated units (that is, as pure acoustical phenomena), sonority 2, a minor triad with the seventh, is relatively more consonant than sonority 1, a minor triad with the fourth. In context, however, the nature of voice leading obliges us to hear sonority 2 as more dissonant than either sonority 1 or 3. For an analyst committed to procedures of con-

20I use the term "acoustic consonance" to describe consonance determined by explicitly stated physical criteria-put forward by various theorists including Helmholtz, Stumpf, and Hindemith-and "aesthetic consonance" to denote the often arbitrary adoption of a particular physical sound as "consonant" by the force of its compositional use. There is, of course, nothing absolute about "acoustic consonance"; the opposition invoked here is simply a convenient fiction.

nection, the apparent conflict is no conflict at all, for the crucial point is not the intrinsic property of a sonority but its behavior in a musical context. To set up a relationship of equivalence between normative consonance/dissonance and functional/non- functional axes respectively may be an oversimplication, but it enables us to contrast Stravinsky's approach with that of conventional tonal music. In the final analysis, notions of consonance or dissonance are based on the force of context, with the referential elements becoming nominal or arbitrary consonances while the subsidiary elements are heard as dissonances.

Example 2c provides another illustration of neighbor-note motion very similar to that of 2b. The principal sonority is a seventh chord on F#, from which the sonority in the fourth bar de-

I I


parts, and to which it returns in the last bar of the example. Ex- ample 2d is also interpreted as a neighbor-note progression since it enshrines several neighbor-note patterns. It differs from 2b, however, insofar as its third element, sonority 3, is different from sonority 1. But there is no perceptual challenge to the neighbor motion which occurs in four voices in both upper and lower forms. In Example 2e, a G-D pitch-class pedal is articulated by neighbor-note motion as shown in the reduction beneath the music. Here, both complete and incomplete neigh- bors are invoked. And finally, Example 2f shows that the subject of the fugato of the Sanctus, considered in isolation, con- sists of a double neighbor-note motion followed by a skip from E to G (the latter will later be shown to form part of an arpeggiation of an E-minor triad).

PROLONGATION

If cadential articulation is central to the Mass, and if its voice leading admits diminutions on a fundamental level, then, pro- ceeding hierarchically, we can say that prolongation is also central to structural articulation. In its simplest form, prolongation is conceived as a composing out of an interval or chord. The prolonged element acts as the focal point throughout the passage in question and secures its ultimate meaning. Typically, the referential sonority occurs at the beginning and end of the passage in question and may also be referred to in the course of its duration. But there are several variations on this normative expression. A prolongation may be prospective, in which case the hierarchically superior member is stated at the outset and remains functional throughout, or it may be retroactive, in which case it occurs at the end of the passage and is shown to absorb the dynamic sense of the passage as a whole. Or there may be a situation in which a progression merely points to, but does not state, a particular sonority; the missing sonority is still the active one. The concept of prolongation therefore most

fundamentally acknowledges hierarchic organization, but it retains a strategic flexibility in the methods by which that hierarchy is expressed. It is important to stress that these various ways are not merely stylistic-having to do with a variety of musical surfaces-but structural as well. It is in recognizing the latter possibility that the door is opened to Stravinsky's practice.21

Example 3a, from the Kyrie, shows one method of prolongation. Pitch class El is clearly the focal point of the passage; we will say therefore that it is the pitch that is prolonged. The clearest expression of this prolongation may be heard in the arpeggiated ES-major chord in the bass. Functioning alongside this are the beginning and concluding sonorities which, although different, hold ENl and Bl invariant. The orientation towards El is also greater in the final sonority than in the initial one. To say that this passage is "in El, major" would be to sim- plify matters to a point of distortion; it may be preferable to say that it is "on El ." But the former description is not easily dismissed when the gestural sense of the passage suggests motion within the chord of El. Included in Example 3a is an interpretation of various diminutions in this passage, diminutions which function rather like those in conventional tonal music. Even the

21A variety of meanings surrounds the term "prolongation" in the Stravinsky literature, although most seem to acknowledge the actual physical presence of the prolonged sonority as the key factor. See, among others: Katz, Challenge to Musical Tradition, 294 and following; Roy Travis, "Towards a New Concept of Tonality?" Journal of Music Theory 3 (1959), 257-84; and, especially, Morgan, "Dissonant Prolongation." The central issue in the Morgan-Benjamin debate-Morgan's "Dissonant Prolongations, Perfect Fifths, and Major Thirds in Stravinsky's Piano Concerto," In Theory Only 4/4 (1978): 3-7, is a response to Benjamin's "Tonality without Fifths"-is the extent to which specific passages in Stravinsky's music may be said to prolong a

sonority. A useful recent contribution to the discussion of prolongation is Schulenberg, "Modes, Prolongations, and Analysis," which embraces a broad historical context. See also Straus, "The Problem of Prolongation in Post- Tonal Music," Journal of Music Theory 31 (1987), 1-21, which attempts a theoretical definition.


Example 3. Prolongations a. Kyrie, mm. 48-49 [9,1 6

l N

:1E I ,~

b. Gloria, mm. 72-75 122I

N IA

P N r

^ IJ--6 N N

I -P L -

V

I

EV I

L

5_ 4 3

3 2 1

49 J , i ,IL

6 72 2 I



c. Agnus Dei, mm. 1-4

F~i~ i r~ r Fl "--r' -' i r ~_i

A 2!

I

i D/d: (t)7

: J J I I J D: V III V

J J 13 J J I J. I V (IV) I

r

3

v , d ,,~ I

t1


d. Voice leading in Sanctus, mm. 13-24

@ 0 45 + 3

@ 0//i 0 0 - J // 'I - II III 'I _i J -; 7 : j

Middle ground

N ~-.J J~N hL*- t'?-~i *J1) A

grBack-oun : groundlj r~ ~ [ I

3

e. Voice leading in Agnus Dei, mm. 5-7

0 ?

r f r t +1L,i1 A - - gnus De - i

X? - \i - \e1 A-

Io ,^_W N

temporal displacements of various contrapuntal lines-which therefore yield an apparently dissonant surface-are character- istic of tonal music.

By far the most persuasive element of "connection" in this passage is the 5-4-3-2-i descent that is embedded in its unfolding (see the reduction in open noteheads in Example 3a). We might think of this as "significant line," an implied line that orients the voice leading of the passage but is not necessarily heard on the surface of the piece.22 That the line is perceptually not

22"Significant line" is a term used by Gerald Abraham in Chopin's Musical Style (London: Oxford University Press, 1939), 72 to describe a kind of "melody" in Chopin's music which lies somewhere between pure melody and pure accompaniment; it is, on other words, embedded in a texture that is not explicitly segmented with respect to the two parameters.

I I 1


too far removed from the sounding surface, however, is evident from the analogy between the overall registral descent of the literal surface and the descent of the significant line. Here, as in Example le, the content of the passage suggests pandiatonicism, but such a label tells us little about the nature of the dynamic motion in the passage.

Another type of prolongation is illustrated in Example 3b, from the Gloria. The reduction interprets this as a prolongation of D, although unlike the B l of the previous passage, D occurs here only at the end, not at the beginning. This, therefore, is a retrospectively perceived prolongation, or one in which the movement of lines is oriented towards the final sonority, which then attains a measure of stability. To call this final sonority a stable one, however, is to invite possible criticism, since this sonority is not a conventional triad but a [024] trichord, set class 3-6. In this particular temporal and sonorous context, it as- sumes the role of regulator and goal, just as it prepares the final sonority of the movement. On the basis of these qualities, it is interpreted as the prolonged sonority. To call it a "focused dissonance" (as Whittall, for example, would) may be one way of mitigating the distinction between consonance and dissonance implicit in a hierarchic interpretation. But since there is no consistent use of set class 3-6, its significance remains local. Still another way into the passage is to focus on what the procedures of "connection" produce. These procedures are shown in reduction in Example 3b and consist principally of two pairs of incomplete neighbor-note progressions to the F# (melody) and D (bass) that form the basis of the final sonority. This is another instance of the foregrounding of procedure (compare Example li) by virtue of consistent stepwise motion, but the result is far from being merely normative.

A third example of prolongation is shown in Example 3c, a recurring passage in the Agnus Dei. Before discussing the sense in which this passage may be heard as a prolongation of D, we might consider another interpretation of it (see lowest line of Example 3c). Donald Grout proposes that we hear this as a

"passage in D and predominantly modal (Dorian)."23 It is not, however, the modal orientation that he pursues, but the tonal one, which results in the appending of roman numerals to most of the vertical sonorities in the passage. The entire progression, V-III-V-I-V-(IV)-I, charts a dominant-tonic path. A chain of roman numerals with no modifications or qualifications hardly does justice to this passage, whose initial pandiatonicism challenges rather than affirms a sense of tonal orientation. Yet it is not easy to dismiss altogether the basic motivation of Grout's analysis, which is the fact that the passage is organized hierarchically, if in no other way than in the final, somewhat con- trived cadence on D, suggesting mode 1. What is missing from this analysis is also what is most relevant perceptually- namely, a sense of connection in voice leading. In light of earlier discussion, we note that the passage emphasizes C initially, a C that is decorated by both upper and lower neighbor notes, and that towards the end it progresses to D. The reduction fills in the details of the story.

Since the sense of a prolonged D is perhaps not as obvious in this passage as it is in the previous example (3b), it is necessary to amplify the factors that have influenced this reading. First, the interpretation takes into account a more global process, the large-scale recurrence of this four-measure passage and its eventual function as the terminal element of the movement and therefore of the work as a whole. This is therefore another example of a retrospectively perceived prolongation, not only on the local level but also on the global level (compare Example 3b). It is, however, possible to question whether this is a genuine prolongation or whether it is not some sort of progression. That is, does not the C-D succession describe two hierarchically equivalent pitches, thereby eliminating the temptation to select pitch classes of priority? This counter-argument might be in-

2Donald J. Grout with Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 4th ed. (New York: Norton, 1980). Grout's analysis appears in the context of an "introduction to Stravinsky's harmony" (p. 720).


structive for analyzing other sections of the Mass where the fact of succession, complete with consistent voice leading, is not enough to indicate priority; but, given the aforementioned global process, it has to be dismissed. The priority of the D- major triad at the end of this progression dwarfs any other potential priority, and this priority, although it is challenged in the final sonority of the movement (D), remains perceptually dominant since no other pitch or pitch class is offered as an alternative. This is, in other words, a prolongation by default, although to describe it as such is to distance it unnecessarily from conventional tonal music, some of whose prolonged sonorities are determined equally by default.24

The next example (3d), the fugato passage in the Sanctus, offers one of the more complicated instances of prolongation in the Mass. Its deliberate archaism carries with it an equally archaic sense of modal articulation, so that it is tempting to base a modal interpretation on the points of imitation, E, B, E, B, and therefore to conclude that the passage is in some sort of Phryg- ian mode.25 Unless "Phrygian" is being used loosely, such an

24If we accept the possibility that the articulation of functional prominence in Stravinsky's music can be and is aided by, among other factors, register, rhythm, duration, temporal placement, and so on, then we have to treat as a

priori the presence, on some level, of pitch classes of priority. Although van den Toorn is in broad agreement with this view, his own inclination is to stress multiple meanings rather than simple ones. But the recognition of "potential centers" can become a convenient excuse for refusing to address the complex question of perceptual priority, as when van den Toorn asserts about several

passages from Firebird and Petrouchka that "relations impose themselves all the more forcefully in the form of an inert, self-contained, tension-clinched complexe sonore within which no selection of pitch-class priority seems legiti- mate, and, indeed, the search for one somewhat beside the point" (The Music of Igor Stravinsky, 52). Doubtless there are cases of genuine ambiguity where such a caveat applies, but it is difficult to see that all of his Examples 3 through 17c (pp. 10-41) illustrate comparable ambiguities. It might even be argued that the elevation of multiple meanings to a status of principle represents a retreat from the discovery of meaning (that is, hierarchic orientation) in those passages.

2See, for example, Craft, "Stravinsky's Mass," 204.

interpretation cannot be sustained for very long, if for no other reason than that these pitches constitute points of departure to which the music never returns. The ending of the fugato, in fact, has little to do with E-Phrygian.

The voice-leading graph of this passage given in Example 3d shows a large-scale progression from an E area to a C area. On this largest level, the fugato is read as a prolongation of C, the whole passage mapping out a 3-21 3-2-i descent seen most clearly in the bass. Again, as in Examples ld and 3a, the occurrence of the descent in the bass is an inversion of normal tonal practice, but its role in leading the ear is not thereby dimin- ished. The occurrence of structural descents in the lowest voice is not a norm of tonal but of pretonal practice. Neo- Schenkerian analyses of the music of composers such as Ma- chaut and Landini offer examples of such inverted Urlinien.26 To have to invoke a similar explanation in the present context is hardly surprising, given Stravinsky's deliberate use of archaism in this piece. But it is important to emphasize that the analogy between medieval practice and Stravinsky's rests less on similarity of substance than on similarity of function.

It would be tedious to describe all the details of the voice- leading interpretation given in this passage, but some of the de- cisions made as to structural importance need to be justified. The graph reads the first six bars as constituting a progression from E to D, executed first as an arpeggiation, E-G-B, followed by a prolongation of the B-G dyad, and leading finally to a 6-7 cadence on D. Both the beginning arpeggiation and the cadence at the end of the progression are fairly clear, but not, perhaps, the middle motion, which contains several locally directed chromatic progressions. The latter, however, offer no alternative tonal sense. Again, the reading of an intervening B-

26See, for example, the illustrative graphs accompanying Daniel Leech- Wilkinson's "Machaut's Rose, lis and the Problem of Early Music Analysis," MusicAnalysis 3 (1984), 9-28, which contain "Ursitze" descending in octaves in both voices.


G prolongation in mm. 16-18 arises by default. The alto en- trance in m. 19 restores the priority of E, and leads by way of the same arpeggiation to a concluding E-F#-G melodic ascent

supported by a C-D bass progression. Stepwise "connection" thus remains the guiding force throughout the passage, lending it continuity and coherence in spite of its surface.

No doubt the status of diminutions in this passage will be

questioned by some listeners in spite of earlier caveats, so it

may be worth making a point about the final chord, which is

interpreted with priority given to the C-G dyad. The actual con-

cluding sonority is the recurring tetrachord mentioned earlier, set class 4-23, but it is not articulated in a way that suggests that it is anything more than a concluding sonority, a genuine "ter-

minating convenience" in van den Toorn's terms. The C-G

dyad, on the other hand, forms the clear goal of linear motion, first hinted at, broken, resumed, and brought to completion in the manner of Schenker's Unterbrechung (interruption). My graph therefore shows a "supposed tonic" rather than an actual one. Conceptually, the large-scale 3-2|13-2-i progression con- stitutes the preferable explanation, although the fact that set class 4-23 is found in this context continues to enhance the observation regarding its statistical prominence. We need not choose between the two explanations, since they point to the

multiple meanings inherent in the fugato. What matters is mak-

ing explicit the perspective which sanctions each explanation.27

27Set class 4-23 has been referred to on a number of occasions in this essay, so it will be helpful to note the contexts in which it appears. In the Kyrie it occurs twice as a cadential sonority (mm. 38 and 42) and also provides the basis for structural coherence in the movement as a whole (see Example 4b and subsequent discussion below). The same set provides the prolongational frame for the semicanonic opening four measures of the Gloria (the pitch classes involved are E, F#, A, and B) and is reiterated within an entire section, mm. 19- 34 (it is heard a total of 22 times). In the Agnus Dei, 4-23 is significant both dispositionally and statistically; it marks the first syllable of each of the key wordsAgnus, Peccata, and miserere in the first 15 measures and, perhaps more important, returns as the closing sonority of the movement and therefore of the work as a whole.

Before leaving the subject of prolongation, I should like to comment briefly on a short and deceptively simple passage at the beginning of the Agnus Dei (Example 3e), which provides further illustration of Stavinsky's play with tonal convention. "Connection" is immediately apparent from the upper-voice descent from C to G, just as the argument that the passage con- stitutes a prolongation of the C-G dyad is supported by the intervallic-but not spatial-equivalence of the opening and

closing sonorities. The fourth sonority also adds to the sense of

C-priority, as does the lower-voice movement from C to E and back to C. This would seem to be a paradigmatic prolongation, and in some ways it is, but one or two events in the passage show the ways in which Stravinsky has transformed this normative prolongation to yield an unusual and therefore uniquely Stravinskian progression. As two-voice counterpoint, there is much in this passage that would not be "allowed." The fact that a dissonant fourth is followed by another dissonance, a major seventh, is already odd. But notice that Stravinsky has stag- gered the sense of this passage so that "connection" is never threatened. The lower voice's descending fifth (G-C) in the first measure is "smoothed over" by the stepwise descent (C-B) in the upper voice, just as the same descent forms part of the

global expression of "C major" in the passage.28 "Connection"

similarly overrides the sense of disjunction between the opening and closing intervals, which are here perceived as contextual equivalences-they constitute, after all, the same interval

class-contradicting both pretonal and tonal counterpoint. The view that Stravinsky "composes with intervals"29 is certainly supported by this reading, but the more significant fact is that

composing with intervals for Stravinsky inevitably means com-

posing lines, and it is this unfailing attention to "connection"

28In context, this passage is perhaps more strongly perceived with a G bias rather than a C one. But even if we choose to hear it in G, we would still need to

acknowledge a strong orientation towards its "subdominant," C. 29Milton Babbitt, "Remarks on the Recent Stravinsky," 167.


that provides the most powerful perceptual tool for analyzing his music.

STRUCTURAL COHERENCE

The techniques examined hitherto are operative on local levels of structure. How are Stravinsky's larger structures generated? This final section addresses the question of large-scale structural coherence, in particular the question of goal-directed tonality.

In conventional tonal music, background structural coherence derives from the linear projection or horizontalization of the tonic triad. Events in the small can often be heard mapped onto the larger structure. For example, an overall 3-2-1-/I-V-I structure may be heard within the opening period of a work, almost as preparation for the larger close. Similarly, various motivic parallelisms are possible between middleground events and foreground ones.30 Perhaps the most radical aspect of structure in Stravinsky's Mass is the discontinuity between for-

mally hierarchic levels, the fact that local events are not

mapped onto the global structure. Whereas the progression from diminution and cadence to prolongation preserves an im-

plicit continuity, that from prolongation to a global structure initiates and maintains an essential discontinuity. And nowhere is this structural condition better exemplified than in the Kyrie, which will form the focus of the rest of our discussion.

The argument that lower-level events (discussed earlier in this essay) do not generate the larger structure stems in part from the non-teleological, occasionally anti-teleological nature of sections of the Mass. This suggestion would seem to go

30See Charles Burkhart, "Schenker's 'Motivic Parallelismas,"' Journal of Music Theory 22 (1978), 145-175. Similar procedures are discussed frequently throughout Oswald Jonas, Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker: The Nature of Musical Work of Art, trans. and ed. John Rothgeb (New York: Longman, 1982).

against the native instincts of musicians for whom Stravinsky's work is so vitally involved with temporality at all levels. But

Stravinsky's predominant (though by no means exclusive) in- volvement with ontological time often results in a conflict with musical time. At the risk of oversimplification and undue generalization, we might say that precisely because the temporal is often so explicit in Stravinsky, the peculiar measure of musical time (which in tonal music, for example, is directly motivated

by the nature of the material and its treatment) is constantly threatened. Methodologically, the implication is that we find a set of contextual, internally coherent attributes for segmentation and leave the larger structure to be generated not by "prolonged motion through the framework of a single key- determining progression," but rather by the sheer force of

contiguity between segments. But as we shall see presently, the Kyrie calls for a pragmatic reading of this implication.31

Of the ten cadences cited in Example 1 to illustrate Stravinsky's cadential practice, eight were taken from the Ky- rie. This was construed as a hint that a sense of tonal orientation is perhaps strongest in this movement.32 Robert Craft has writ-

ten that "one could write a book on the systems of keys in [the

31Any claim for discontinuity between musical events, whether they inhabit a single level of structure or different levels, is likely to meet with the counter- claim that on some grand conceptual level no two events can be truly discontin- uous with each other. One accepts a discontinuity because one has not searched hard enough for a continuity. Only specific contexts will provide evi- dence for or against such interpretations, and it is my contention here that

given the nature of the continuities unearthed in the earlier discussion of ca-

dence, diminution, and prolongation, the movement from small- to large-scale structure is relatively speaking a discontinuity. For a more rounded discussion of these issues, see Hasty, "On the Problem of Succession and Continuity in

Twentieth-Century music." Ultimately, though, the constraints imposed by an

analyst's plot may well be the final arbiters in this matter. 32Because the Kyrie and Gloria dates from 1944, four years earlier than the

other movements of the Mass, it is tempting to explain the strong tonal orientation of the first movement with reference to this chronology. But this view would only hold if Stravinsky's stylistic evolution followed a clear path from

tonality to atonality. The situation is far more complicated than that, of course.


Kyrie],"33 although he does not spell out the form which such an analysis might take. His own discussion acknowledges mo- dality as a principal force, and also various means of articulation including "modulation," "blocks of tonalities," and "keys." Even cursory examination of this movement will confirm that tonal elements are present, as in the final cadence, which, in spite of the presentation of its terminal element in first inversion, remains a cadence in, or at least on, G. Quite whether one can speak of a governing tonality of G major is less straightforward.

Two approaches to segmentation are suggested by the Ky- rie's outer form. The first stems from the deliberately sectional- ized musical surface, each statement of the text forming a self- sufficient, even self-regulating area of activity. The second takes a more all-encompassing view, noting a significant break in m. 15-matters of textual overlap notwithstanding-and the sense of recapitulation beginning in m. 48. The result is an A-B- A formal plan. The following diagram summarizes this basic information; Example 4a provides a synopsis of pitch materials.

1 1-5 2 6-9 3 10-15

4 16-21 5 22-25 6 26-34 7 34-38 8 38-42 9 43-47

10 48-52

Cadences Form

Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison Christe eleison

Christe Christe eleison [Instrumental] Kyrie Kyrie eleison Kyrie eleison

Kyrie eleison

F Bb V/G

D A Bb "F" "F" V/A

G

I

A

B

A


What sort of plot can we deduce from this schematization? The above sequence of cadences, although it contains background intervallic patterns-fifth relations, abandoned dominants, and so on-is by itself not sufficient to form the basis of an as- sessment of tonality in the movement. It does not, indeed it cannot, map out a uniform sense of key, since it acknowledges only endings of phrases, not the larger mechanism of closure that would take into account beginnings as well as middles. Moreover, the actual concluding sonorities are far from being normative, allowing, on the one hand, important secondary emphasis within elements of the chord while revising, on the other hand, the system of hierarchies operative in traditional harmony. But there are places where the implications of conventional harmony are given further contextual support. As shown in Example 4a, m. 15 ends on what appears to be a dominant seventh of G, but the G is withheld. When the process of this layer is resumed in m. 48, the unresolved D is finally taken over and resolved to G, the closing tonality. There is therefore a sense in which one might hear a G tonality articulated first as an incomplete progression, and later brought to completion. If such a long-range relationship is perceptually plausible, then one might draw an analogous connection between m. 47, which finishes on the dominant seventh of A, and the beginning of the Gloria, where A is attained. Note that both of these explanations affect the two most implicative cadences in the movement, those that seem to require a normative completion. Ex- ample 4b concretizes the tonalist's manifesto, showing on the deepest level an open V-I progression, the V prolonged by its upper neighbor note.

This reading of conventional functional-harmonic control in the movement, with its assumption of a straightforward teleological process, is bound to elicit criticism from those listeners who prefer a more neutral apparatus for dealing with this music. Certainly, one would wish to have an apparatus whose elements are not being qualified all the time, and which can therefore be said to account for the piece "on its own terms." At the

Section Measures Text


Example 4a. Synopsis of pitch materials in Kyrie

9le? b I - 1 I_ 0 1/.- ^- LI \> AK '--

A -=l -

iy '/z* W -x, ....

?v (5

-

6_l , e

- 22I

f --6: - I~I- - 4 I-^ ,L

-4j\ \J * I >-F I< f F1 r I I 1 r -7- j \I 1 ,t _ ' I

Example 4b. "Tonal" reading of Kyrie

A II

t#7 G: bII6 V7 VI7 - V 4-I \ J V. y

V N

TI Tr- -

M 4 --L -

ihJ ;, . v

o of

pi , ?, ? -)' . 1 - '%

"

~ttF+I g d _c N

1 L' a k IT

'~~ bl* '; - I^t -v^

? @6 @ . c- m, A', ~,4 at I

I l,lb~O A


Example 4c. Set class 4-23 as determinant of structure in Kyrie

[V-I harmonic progression]

[set class 4-23]

^A J

j 6 _ _ Y V L rV, j A I vy ir 4 1 f VW

tJ v= v - & set 0f tt- L'Cii V

~set -G-

. '

0 () (0 ( ( (0) 0 s?class- @ 4-23

. 1O I.,&

[set class 4-23] [set class 4-23] -' to beginning of Gloria

same time, there is intuitive justification for looking at the possibility of such long-range harmonic connections, given the earlier demonstration of harmonic control in cadential situations, in diminutions, and in prolongations.

What Examples 4a, 4b, and 4c (which will be discussed presently) set into relief (something I have tried to capture by my ambivalent use of hierarchic notation) is a conflict between clear, functional-harmonic passages and non-functional, often asserted pitch classes. The series of Eb's which initiate each of the first three sections (mm. 1, 6, and 10) and return towards the end of the movement (m. 48) are a case in point. Their artic- ulative prominence, as well as their continued membership in a stratum that does not appear to be integrated timbrally, regis- trally, or rhythmically with the prevailing process of the movement, mark them for special attention. To interpret them in Example 4b as neighbor-note motions to D, the dominant, although theoretically acceptable, seems too facile, for it denies pitch class El, what might be called its hard-won independence.

The authority of a tonal interpretation is further undermined by the fact that unlike conventional tonal music, where every event can be explained with reference to the classical set of diminutions (which is not to say that an event admits of only one type of explanation), a good deal of the intervening music in the Kyrie cannot be easily accommodated within the harmonic- functional umbrella. We conclude, therefore, that while the lower levels of structure partake of procedures and gestures as- sociated with tonal music, their peculiar conjunction in the work either nullifies or transcends normative tonal structure.

There is at least one other way of hearing the Kyrie as a unified structure (see Example 4c). A flexible notion of prominence has been invoked in the selection of pitch classes of priority. These include registral prominence, repetition or reiteration, textural placement, goal of melodic phrase, and bass of concluding sonority. The argument here is that these contextual forces serve to thrust particular pitches into prominence, and that, as a corollary, there is absolutely no conflict

IJ I I . I I. n" 1 n "

y f, L t r L- (' -a )) ' , V, I - is


between the criteria for selection in any single instance. In other words, the factors of register and repetition invoked in

support of Eb, for example, are not contradicted by other criteria. These procedures are foregrounded, so to speak, serving to make certain pitches accessible to the ear. If we now examine the prominent pitches in both the top and bottom voices of Ex-

ample 4c-a procedure that therefore goes beyond he collection of cadences-we see clearly that they comprise set class 4- 23. This tetrachordal class, at the same transpositional level, is unfolded across the span of the movement as a whole, appear- ing once in the top voice (with several internal repetitions of

pitch classes), and twice in the bottom voice. We might therefore refer to set class 4-23 as a tonic, a "dissonant tonic" perhaps.34

The notion of a dissonant tonic, however, harbors a basic

illogic insofar as it allows a contradictory set of procedures under the umbrella of prolongation. Recall that prolongation refers to a composed-out interval or sonority, a process that draws on active diminution, thereby implying a fundamental distinction between consonance and dissonance. The idea of a dissonant prolongation would require that the consonance- dissonance axis be systematically reversed, yet this is not what

happens in the Kyrie. Often, it is merely the case that while normative consonance-dissonance factors continue to be invoked, a sequence of prominent pitches-determined variously by du- rational, timbral, accentual/rhythmic, or registral factors-are felt to orient the actual voice leading. The claim that set class 4- 23 is prolonged in this movement therefore implies a radical extension of the meaning of prolongation, one which reduces the significance of the term to mere prominence, and therefore ex- cises the quality of contrapuntal control that is inextricably linked to it.

34See Travis, "Towards a New Concept of Tonality?" and Morgan, "Disso- nant Prolongation."

It would seem therefore that the most useful way of hearing the tonal process in this movement is a dual one, one that rec- ognizes, on a deep level, an underlying tonal structure of G, which then defers to a more surface phenomenon, the "arpeggiated" tetrachord, 4-23. The former appeals to the authority of a system of hierarchic tonality, articulated here on a background level; the latter, based essentially on foreground articu- lative prominence, appeals to intervallic rather than pitch coherence. To say that one needs the benefit of these two essentially contradictory perspectives in order to gain the rich- est sense of structural procedure in the piece is not to compro- mise the analysis but to accept, first, that the results of either approach are genuinely fragmentary, and second, that the combined results yield irreducible conflicts.

Limitations of space forbid a demonstration in extenso of the explanatory power of the analytic method applied in the Kyrie, but a measure of its potential may be gleaned from the next movement, the Gloria, whose tonal strategy bears a remark- able resemblance to the Kyrie. The Gloria begins with an emphasis on A, yields to a reiterated set class 4-23 (mm. 19-34), returns to A (m. 35), and eventually arrives in D (mm. 72- end). The large-scale A-D succession, like the D-G succession in the Kyrie, comprises a viable, if weakly represented, dominant-tonic frame against which can be heard various prominent pitches. Even the treatment of 4-23 between the two movements underlies these parallels. Unlike the Kyrie, where the set was "arpeggiated," it is now reiterated as a vertical sonority. Yet the interplay of background and foreground in the Gloria retains an element of connection, most notably in m. 35, where the Eb of the previous 19 measures is absorbed into the A orbit by being reinterpreted enharmonically as chromatic neighbor note to E. Again, the sheer scale on which this occurs is comparable to the El's of the Kyrie which, as argued earlier, both resolve to D and retain a measure of independence.


I have been concerned to acknowledge a "background" to the methods of pitch organization discussed in this essay and also to stress the ways in which that background is uniquely transformed by Stravinsky. Thus, a distinction between morphology and syntax has enabled an explanation of Stravinsky's use of cadence and diminution. The difference may be conceptualized in terms of the weighting of internal components, so that the shape of a neighbor-note formation, for example, is retained without necessarily carrying over a normative consonance-dissonance succession in the expression of that motion. But the line between extension and negation can be a thin one, as the analysis of global strategy in the Kyrie has shown.

To interpret the Kyrie on the one hand as a movement "in G major," and on another as a composing out of set class 4-23, and to refuse to choose between these two readings-indeed to insist that one needs the benefit of these essentially contradictory perspectives-may seem to set the clock back for Stravinsky analysis. The tendency nowadays is to find consistency, not conflicts. Thus van den Toorn is at pains to show that the octatonic scale is used consistently throughout Stravinsky's music, while Taruskin, in what is perhaps his most explicitly analytical article, proposes to demonstrate the self-sufficiency of an octatonic explanation by showing how a voice-leading interpretation of an entire scene from Petrouchka can be accommodated within the octatonic frame.35

35Taruskin, "Chez Petrouchka." The issue of octatonicism does not arise in the context of an analysis of the Mass. The only place in the entire work at which some reference is made to the octatonic scale is the lead to the climax in the Credo. Of van den Toorn's two lists of octatonic presence in Stravinsky, the first includes passages that make "explicit reference" to the scale, while the second, which includes the Mass (specifically, the Credo, Nos. 33-43), lists

"passages exhibiting degrees of ocatatonic influence, passages where the collection, given some prior familiarity with it, might reasonably be inferred, even with interference from conflicting sets (or systems) of reference" (The Music of

But what of consistent conflicts? Could these not contribute positively to the development of a theory for Stravinsky's music? The idea of conflict or unintegrated interruption still leaves certain theorists uneasy because of the aesthetic assumptions it seems to harbor. The argument for such theorists is that the conflict is in the viewpoint, not in themusic. But it would be simplistic (and dangerously so) to suggest that music which is replete with such positive and enticing conflicts is somehow in- ferior to music without similar conflicts, for one soon realizes that the notion of conflict is absolutely central to all musical expression. Nor is this the first time that an aesthetic of irreconcil- ability has been put forward to explain the music of a great composer.36 Conflict and co-existence of dialectical opposites are, as construed here, not just positive measures, but strongly positive ones. To reduce away these conflicts is, in my opinion, to attack that which is most essential in Stravinsky. It is of course possible to subsume these conflicts into a higher-level, conflict-

Igor Stravinsky, 43). I shall forego comment on the unnecessarily prescriptive nature of list 2 for an emphasis on the negligible role played by the scale in the structure of the Mass. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore, to read Taruskin's claim that "[No] further work on the question of Stravinsky's style and technique [can] validly progress without taking [Berger's and van den Toorn's findings] . . . fundamentally into account" ("Stravinsky's 'Angle' "). If the present demonstration of structural procedure in the Mass is anything to go by, then Taruskin's assertion needs to be qualified. To argue the case for alternatives to octatonicism would require much more space than is available in the present context, but suffice it to say that a rigorous but musically sensitive method for segmentation based, not on a fixed referential collection such as the octatonic scale, but on objectively stated criteria for musical perception may well provide a better account of how to hear Stravinsky's music than as an em- bodiment of the continuous unfolding of two-thirds of the chromatic scale. A recent study which takes this less elegant (in the mathematical sense) but musically more rewarding approach is Hasty, "Segmentation and Process in Post- Tonal Music," Music Theory Spectrum 3 (1981), 54-73.

36See Rose Rosengard Subotnik, "Adorno's Diagnosis of Beethoven's Late Style: Early Symptom of a Fatal Condition," Journal of the American Mu- sicological Society 29 (1976), 242-275.


free unity, a task which is easily accomplished by the simplest and most mundance of semantic shifts. The trouble is that with such a shift, our discourse will have taken a different turn: away from the extraordinary environment of Stravinsky's Mass to the decidedly ordinary environment in which we conduct our discourse about that work. For the analyst rather than the theo- rist, such a turn must be fiercely resisted.37

37Since the completion of this essay in 1987, a number of important analytical and theoretical studies treating of the topics discussed here have appeared. To have taken these findings into account would have required a great deal of reorganization without proportional gain in substance. The reader is referred to Whittall's "Review-Survey: Some Recent Writings on Stravinsky," Music Analysis 8 (1989), 169-176, for the most recent discussion of a number of burn- ing issues in current Stravinsky analysis.

ABSTRACT This study of pitch organization in Stravinsky's Mass takes as point of departure a remark of Schenker's regarding coherence (Zusam- menhang) or, in context, "connection" as the basis of tonal and- arguably-post-tonal music. Stravinsky's play with the conventions of cadence, diminution, and prolongation is then demonstrated in se- lected passages. Finally, two mutually contradictory but complementary analyses of the Kyrie are offered to show that a residue of conflict is often retained on the deepest levels of Stravinsky's large-scale tonal

strategy.

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