arta retranzitiei mozart

roman ivanovitch

Mozart’s Art of Retransition

In ‘Toward Mozart’, an editorial for a set of 1991 Mozartjahr essays, RichardKramer voices a profound fear: ‘At its deepest, [Mozart’s] music moves us by apower that is beyond the grasp of scholarship’ (1991, p. 93).1 This acknowledge-ment of a crucial inadequacy of scholarly paraphernalia is a painful way to open.Yet the chastening truth of the observation is leavened by its implication of whatdraws us back to the music nonetheless: bittersweet, Kramer’s formulationstands as both warning and encouragement. There are surely few subjects moreineffable, simultaneously attractive and resistant of explanation, than the notionof the beautiful in Mozart; and yet it is to this that scholarly attention hasgradually been attuned in recent years. Interrelated studies by Scott Burnham,Mary Hunter and Maynard Solomon have all drawn attention to passages ofexquisite beauty, often rendered with an extravagance which seems quite self-conscious, a hallmark of the composer’s style.2 Taken together, these studieshighlight the striking diversity of configurations which the beautiful can take inMozart – Hunter focusses on the dramatic deployment of ‘too beautiful’ musicin Così fan tutte (1999, p. 291), Solomon on a mingling of seemingly opposingtendencies and Burnham, building upon Solomon’s insights, on a specialMozartian dissonance, a marker of a new kind of consciousness – yet they allshare a determination to resist through technical analysis the temptation merelyto stand and point. As Burnham puts it, ‘Most musically trained critics arecontent simply to acknowledge the sheer beauty of this music as they move onto more tractable topics’ (2005, pp. 40–1).3 The present essay is intended tosupplement these concerns, focussing on a characteristic Mozartian gesture,conspicuous for being at once prosaically functional and richly (over-)composed:a type of retransition procedure, quintessentially expressed in slow movements,involving a contrapuntally braided linear descent over a dominant pedal. Thisgesture gives rise to some of the most exalted moments in all of Mozart, butthe aim here is to elucidate some technical features of these passages, to showhow they are grounded in everyday compositional procedures. I intend also tobroaden our understanding of their contexts and affiliations within Mozart’sstyle by connecting them with non-retransitional treatments of pedal points andby tracing some of their pedagogical associations.

As is to be expected when issues of nomenclature intersect with shiftingstylistic trends, the concept of retransition entails some intricacies. Although theutility of the term itself is proven, the question of exactly where a retransitionbegins is still contested. In sonata-form movements, for instance,William Caplin

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2249.2011.00305.x

Music Analysis, 30/i (2011) 1© 2011 The Author.Music Analysis © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

locates it at the point in the development where the modulation back to the homekey begins, often after strong cadential articulation, rather than at the laterconnective dominant, by which time the home key has already been achieved.4

Beth Shamgar has shown how the tendency to associate the retransition with theculminating dominant pedal arose in nineteenth-century theoretical writings asa response to Beethoven’s practices, which, eschewing the medial cadentialarticulation of earlier eighteenth-century development sections, often pressseamlessly toward the dominant arrival as the point of climax. (Poundie Bursteinestimates that the elaboration of this culminating dominant can occupy as muchas 30 per cent of some Beethoven developments.5) It is inevitable that theshadow of Beethoven looms large in any discussion of retransitions, for thetemptation to treat his spine-tingling, mythic retransitions as archetypal ofreturns in general, and to read this archetype back into music of an earlier time,can be hard to resist.6 Yet countercurrents exist. Most notably, Michael Spitzerhas demonstrated a special double-retransition type in Haydn – formal, theninformal – which plays with old and new returning formulas; and Burnham also,having done so much to elucidate the workings of the heroic construction, hasdrawn attention to instances where the Beethovenian burden of return isdeflated, both in Haydn and in Beethoven himself.7 That Mozart too might havea special way of returning can be gleaned from scattered comments in theliterature – Charles Rosen notes how after K. 450 ‘the return to the tonic isgenerally one of the most gracefully accomplished, and often one of the mostmemorable moments in Mozart’s forms’ (1997, p. 208), and Elaine Sisman hasobserved ‘the directional descent that characterizes many of Mozart’s prepara-tions for the recapitulation’ (1993, p. 50) – but nothing substantial has yetcoalesced.8

This last point in particular – the construction of alternative retransitionnarratives to the powerful heroic type – will be developed further below. Fortu-nately, for now some of the technical aspects of retransition reception can be putaside, since the kind of procedure considered here takes place emphatically in oron the preparatory dominant and leads directly to the tonic of the reprise. If aretransition can be described as a potentially multistage process whose functionis to return to the tonic (from a ‘point of furthest remove’ if there is one, or fromthe dominant if there is not), then we are interested in one of a small family ofprocedures at the very end of such a process, involving what has come to becalled a ‘standing on the dominant’.

Generally speaking, three strategies can be identified in Mozart’s music forhandling this standing on the dominant, although these categories are neitherexhaustive nor mutually exclusive. The first is characterised by a rising melodicline, stepwise or arpeggiated, beginning on the root or third of the dominantharmony and aiming at the chordal seventh, from which typically ensues anEingang into the reprise (Ex. 1a).9 Sometimes the ascending line is counter-poised by a descending line in an inner voice, a feature which often involves avoice exchange with the rising line (Ex. 1b).

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Music Analysis, 30/i (2011)© 2011 The Author.Music Analysis © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

A second strategy, perhaps most commonly a sonata-form technique, whenemerging from a development section whose path to the dominant has passedthrough the minor mode, is a neighbouring inflection of the dominant pedal withlowered 6̂ (Ex. 2a; a related procedure places the modal inflection in an uppervoice, altering the sixth above a stationary dominant pedal, as in Ex. 2b). Thistechnique too can lead to a connective Eingang; it can also be used in combina-tion with the first strategy, often preceding it.

A third strategy involves a descending line over the pedal point. Unlike theother two techniques, this one does not usually set up an Eingang, but insteadproceeds directly to the tonic of the reprise. (It can sometimes be regarded,therefore, as an extremely elaborate kind of Eingang itself;William Rothstein hascalled this a ‘lead-in at a larger level’ [Rothstein 1989, p. 52].) It is this type ofretransition procedure which will be explored below. Invested with its own skein

Ex. 1 Retransitions (standing on the dominant) with ascending gesture(a) W. A. Mozart, Sonata in F, K. 332/iii(b) Mozart, Violin Sonata in F, K. 376/ii

145

(Recapitulation)

140(Eingang)

135

(a)

paradigm:

(8 7)

Mozart’s Art of Retransition 3

Music Analysis, 30/i (2011) © 2011 The Author.Music Analysis © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

of connotations and so far lacking any sustained treatment in the literature, itseffect is quite different from that produced by the first two strategies.

A simple illustration comes from the first movement of the Piano Concerto inE�, K. 482 (Ex. 3; the accompanying examples all include textural reductions).After a couple of preliminary runs to mark the arrival on the dominant in bar 253(inflected with the �6–5 motion of the second strategy described above), thepiano gathers itself for two bars (bars 257–258) before the rest of the orchestra,less the strings, enters for the final stage of the retransition. The characteristicfeatures of this retransition type are all here: the hushed dynamics, the descend-ing line at the top of the texture (heard in this case in the flutes), the 2–3suspensions (in the clarinets; suspensions here are measured against the top linerather than against the bass), the leading notes in the bassoon and, in concertomovements, the strand of figuration in the piano. In context, however, there ismore to this excerpt than meets the eye. In a witty take on the convention forretransitions occasionally to anticipate elements of the impending recapitulation,

Ex. 1 Continued

Tempo primocalando nel tempo

54

calando nel tempo

(Eingang) (Recapitulation)Tempo primo

51

paradigm:

(8 7)

(b)

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Ex. 2 Retransitions (standing on the dominant) with prominent chromatic inflection(a) Inflecting the dominant pedal: Mozart, Sonata in B�, K. 333/i(b) Inflecting the melody: Mozart, Quartet in A, K. 464/iv

[ ]

86

90

(Eingang)

(Recapitulation)

(a)

crescendo

crescendo

crescendo

crescendo

133

139 (Recapitulation)

(b)



this stock retransition turns out to mimic one of the most striking and delightfulfeatures of the opening theme: the ‘learned’ descending-fifths sequence, with 2–3suspensions, scored for horns and bassoon – a connection cemented texturallyboth through the stringless scoring of the retransition and through the bassoon’srole in the counterpoint, which is identical in each case.10

Further examples from fast-tempo movements could be adduced – see, forinstance, the first movement of the Jupiter Symphony or the contrapuntal dazzle

Ex. 3 Mozart, Piano Concerto in E�, K. 482/i, retransition and beginning of reca-pitulation(a) Bars 253–272

253

Fl.

Cl. in B

Bsn

Hn in E

Tpt in E

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Vlc.,Cb.

Timp.

257

(descent)

Fl.

Cl. in B

Bsn

Hn in E

Tpt in E

Timp.

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Vlc.,Cb.

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Ex. 3 Continued

261

Fl.

Cl. in B

Bsn

Hn in E

Tpt in E

Timp.

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Vlc.,Cb.

Pno

(Recapitulation)

266

‘learned’ sequence

Fl.

Cl. in B

Bsn

Hns in E

Tpts in E

Timp.

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Vlc.,Cb.



of Leporello’s ‘Ah pietà, signori miei’ from Act II of Don Giovanni; or, ascomplicated variants, the first movement of the G minor Symphony and theouter movements of the Prague Symphony. But, as already suggested, this kind ofretransition comes into its own in slow movements, whose pacing allows thegesture’s tiny harmonic and contrapuntal jolts to resonate and be fully absorbed.(And as many commentators have noted, Solomon most prominently, slowmovements are often the loci of some of Mozart’s most beautiful effects.)

An emblematic instance occurs in the Andante of the Piano Concerto in D, K.451 (Ex. 4).This is actually the second retransition of the movement: it preparesthe third and final statement of the main rondo theme. It has significant weightbehind it, for, in accordance with one of Mozart’s favoured rondo practices, thepreceding episode has arpeggiated down from the tonic through the submediantand the subdominant, articulating each stage with its own characteristic theme.The subdominant theme cadences in bar 63, whereupon a short connective link(the beginning of the retransition proper) seeks out the dominant, gained in bar69 via an augmented sixth chord. It is the next passage, beginning in bar 71,which concerns us. Above the low pedal, the strings weave together strands ofimitative counterpoint based on the movement’s sinuous main theme.11 Thistextural swell crests with the entrance of the winds in bar 75, activating thecharacteristic descending gesture of this retransition type: flute and oboe lockedin 2–3 suspensions, bassoon zigzagging and a layer of figuration (improvisedhere) superimposed by the piano. In this instance, the descent carries the seventhof the V7 chord down a full octave, resolving at the beginning of the reprise.

From a nuts-and-bolts perspective, at the heart of this descending retransitiontype is a family of three interrelated techniques: the elaboration of parallel thirdsinto suspensions (which can themselves be elaborated), the working out of adescending-fifths sequence and the treatment of a pedal point. Ex. 5 sketches outsome of these relationships. Ex. 5a begins with simple parallel thirds over a

Ex. 3 Continued(b) Reduction of retransitional descent

Fl.Cl.

Bsn2 2 23 3 3

(c) Reduction of ‘learned’ sequence at opening

Hns

Bsn2 2 2 333

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Ex. 4 Mozart, Piano Concerto in D, K. 451/ii, second retransition(a) Bars 63–77

3

63

69

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn

in G

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Cb.

Hns

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn

Hnsin G

Pno

Vlc.

Vla

Vn 2

Vn 1

Cb.

Vlc.,



Ex. 4 Continued

(descent)

74

(Reprise)

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn

Hnsin G

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Vlc.

Cb.

3 3

3

(b) Reduction of retransition

Cb.

Vla, Vlc.

[

Vn 1, 2

[Ob.Fl.

Bsn

Fl.Ob.

71

75

Str.

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dominant pedal; in this form, these thirds typically either transfer a seventh downan entire octave or begin closer to the goal, using only a few segments of thirds.Ex. 5b staggers these thirds to form suspensions (as before, these will be referredto as 2–3 suspensions).To the shorter of these suspension chains, Ex. 5c adds anextra voice, which realises the possibility for the chain to form a descending-fifthssequence. Although versions of the fifths sequence not derived from thesestaggered thirds are sometimes used (7–6 suspensions occasionally predomi-nate), it is this idiom which is often used at the very end of this retransition type.

Mozart’s resourcefulness in drawing upon this family of techniques in evernew combinations and guises is dazzling. Even in movements which containmore than one such retransition, they are never presented in the same way twice.For instance, the first retransition of K. 451 (Ex. 6) actually begins with adescending-fifths sequence over a dominant pedal (the reduction suggests itsconnection to the paradigm in Ex. 5c), followed by a plain octave transfer of thechordal seventh in parallel thirds. If the two retransitions of K. 451 in fact sharegenetic material – each begins with a prominent reference to the neighbour notesof the movement’s main theme, followed by an octave descent from the chordalseventh – it is the differences which tell here, most notably the sense of pacing.The later retransition is three times the size of the first, with the octave descentin particular transformed into an almost impossibly long exhalation.

Ex. 5 Family of descending retransition-type procedures(a) Parallel thirds(b) Staggered thirds (2–3 suspensions)(c) Descending fifths

2 3 2 3 2 3

2 2 33 etc. 2 3 2 3 2 3

(a)

(b)

(c)



No introduction to this distinctively Mozartian retransition type can afford tooverlook the slow movement of the Piano Concerto in C, K. 503: its retransitionconstitutes probably the longest, most elaborate standing on the dominantMozart ever composed. No matter how fleetingly the movement is treated,commentators rarely fail to mention something of this moment (bars 59–74;Ex. 7). Donald Francis Tovey calls attention to ‘a really colossal passage on adominant pedal’ (1970, p. 160); Cuthbert Girdlestone likens it to ‘an idealized

Ex. 6 Mozart, Piano Concerto in D, K. 451/ii, first retransition(a) Bars 35–38(b) Reduction of descent

35

(descent)

(Reprise)

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn

Hnsin G

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vla

Cb.Vlc.,

(a)

Bsn

Vlc., Cb.

Fl.36

Ob.

paradigm (descending fifths)

(b)

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Ex. 7 Mozart, Piano Concerto in C, K. 503/ii, retransition(a) Bars 56–74

( )

602

( )

56 1

Fl.

Fl.

Ob.

Ob.

Bsn

Bsn

Hns

Hnsin F

in F

Pno

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vn 2

Vla

Vla

Vlc.,

Vlc.,Cb.

Cb.



example of those extemporizations on A with which organists enable an orches-tra to tune up before a concert’ (1970, p. 166); William Kinderman observes a‘brief but weighty retransition in place of a development’ (2006, p. 211);12 andMessiaen finds room in his programme notes to characterise what he calls ‘a

Ex. 7 Continued

33

683 4 (descent)

71

Fl.

Fl.

Ob.

Ob.

Bsn

Bsn

Hns

Hnsin F

in F

Pno

Pno

Vn 1

Vn 1

Vn 2

Vn 2

Vla

Vla

Vlc.,

Vlc.,Cb.

Cb.

14 roman ivanovitch


wonderful transition’, with piano figuration ‘worthy of the most beautiful Etudesof Chopin’ (1997, p. 197).13 Four stages can be identified in this retransition,which happens to incorporate all three of the strategies outlined above forstanding on the dominant.The first stage is an ascent (bars 59–63), aiming at thechordal seventh (the large leaps in the piano are presumably to be fleshed out inperformance).14 The second stage (bars 63–68) extends this V7 plateau, absorb-ing the effect of the arrival through different instrumental textures.15 The thirdstage (bars 68–70), which employs the common 5–�6–5 fluctuation, also con-firms and extends the rhythmic animation introduced in the piano a couple ofbars earlier, with arabesques in running triplet semiquavers.The fourth and finalstage (bars 70–74) is the characteristic descent which we have been exploring.Like that in K. 451, this one involves an octave transfer of a seventh, the final fewsegments of which embody the circle-of-fifths pattern. But there is a subtleaspect of variable pacing within this descent which is absent from K. 451, a senseof compressing and elongating as the timing of the suspensions contracts, thenbroadens at the very end (changes which are coordinated with the piano’spattern of figuration).The subtlety of Mozart’s craft here is revealed though theobservation that the upper-voice pattern begun in bar 70 could in fact havecontinued all the way through to bar 74, ending exactly ‘on time’ (Ex. 7c).Whatwould be lost in this simplified version is the descending-fifths pattern near theend, which is achievable according to the time scale established in bar 70 only bydoubling the suspension rate in bar 72 – exactly what Mozart does.The effect ofthe ‘syncopation’ in bar 73 (the elongation mentioned above) derives from itsability to be seen as a natural result of this doubling process while being heardagainst the backdrop projected from bar 70, according to which the seventh inbar 73 arrives early. This illustration of what Leonard Meyer has termed ‘coor-dination’ (see n. 8) shows Mozart’s flexibility in handling these conventional

Ex. 7 Continued(b) Reduction of descent

70Ob.

Fl.

Bsn

(c) Hypothetical version of descent, as initiated in bar 70

70



formulas: a contextually established process is altered and supplanted by a roteschema, which nonetheless, emerging as an intensification of the originalprocess, acquires a charge of particularity that renders it deeply moving.

The basic features of this retransition type should by now be clear. Still, wemight wonder what these passages do – that is, what work they perform. Spitzerhas observed that, from a hypermetrical standpoint, retransitional pedal pointshave the task of transforming a structural downbeat (the moment of arrival attheir inception) into an upbeat preparation for the reprise.16 The staging of thedominant seventh – so important in the descending retransition gesture – isclearly crucial in making this transformation plausible. In fact, the hypermetricalperspective is an intriguing one from which to view the pedal point of K. 503,because one of the quirks of the main theme is that it begins with what soundsinescapably like an upbeat bar, despite its simple arpeggiation of the tonic triad.17

Indeed, in principle, it is not clear how one would return convincingly to thisopening from the dominant: the first bar is both tonic and anacrusis. (Theopening orchestral tutti skirted this problem – or solved it in a different way – byclosing on the tonic, so that the piano’s first articulation of the theme continuedthe sounding harmony). Tovey’s beloved dictum that ‘[s]lowness is bigness’(Tovey 1949, p. 277) aside, then, we might not have to go far to understand theproportions of this retransition: it is surely not a coincidence that one of the mostelaborate retransitions in Mozart’s oeuvre should prepare a theme which is sodifficult to begin strongly.

But let us put the question differently: why should Mozart go to such troubleover these spots? Why should he lavish such attention on them? Functionally,they are quite prosaic. Indeed, as Burnham has observed, ‘the act of returning tothe home key in Classical tonal language, particularly the return from thedominant, is the easiest thing in the world’ (Burnham 2001, p. 140).This beingso, one key to these passages might be the simple notion of display. Mozart, ‘oneof the most pretentious composers in history’, in Charles Rosen’s words (1997,p. 467), is showing off. Commenting on a stunning investment of a descending-fifths sequence – actually the retransition of the slow movement of the Quintet inD, K. 593, bars 52–57 (Ex. 8) – Rosen writes: ‘[i]t is typical of Mozart that helavishes his most complex and exquisite contrapuntal art on the banal descent.The progression is used by absolutely everyone, but Mozart aims to demonstratethat no one can do it so well’ (1997, p. 471, n. 8).18 In this light, the simplefunctionality of these passages constitutes the foil which places into heightenedrelief Mozart’s demonstration of mastery.19

A better sense of this latent demonstrative quality can be gained from wideningthe contextual field, which we shall do in two stages, first by drawing in pedagogi-cal concerns, then by following a series of related examples. Eighteenth-centurythoroughbass and composition manuals can shed a certain amount of light on thesubject, since they routinely treated the handling of a pedal point – referred tovariously as Orgelpunkt, point d’orgue and corona.20 From a practical perspective,virtually all writers agreed on two points: first, that the figures associated with

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Ex. 8 Mozart, Quintet in D, K. 593/iii, retransition(a) Bars 50–58(b) Reduction of retransition

55(Reprise)

pizz.

52

(Retransition)

49

coll’ arco

(a)



pedal points were usually so complex and performing errors so frequent that it wasbetter to play these passages tasto solo; and secondly, that under the fearsomefigures often lay a regular harmonic progression (the ‘fundamental bass’ being aparticularly useful tool for showing this). In addition, even though, among themajor treatises of the eighteenth century, the signature 2–3 pattern of theretransitions did not appear in print untilTürk’s Anweisung zum Generalbaßspielenof 1800, several authors noted the propensity for pedal points to yield a height-ening of contrapuntal artifice (in part on account of its long-standing associationwith fugal practice).21 Heinichen, for instance, observed that the term point d’orgue

Ex. 8 Continued

53

(b)

Ex. 9 Two treatments of a dominant pedal from the ‘Attwood Studies’.(a) Attwood’s version(b) Mozart’s reworking

65

65

(a)

(b)

18 roman ivanovitch


arose ‘without doubt because it is very common to hold a note for a long time withthe pedal, and above it with both hands to make all kinds of variations [Variationes]and foreign [fremde] syncopations’ (Heinichen [1728] 1969, p. 948).22 Türk’sexplanation of the pedal point was also rooted in counterpoint: ‘[w]hen the bass,especially before the close of a piece, holds the dominant or tonic for many bars,while in the remaining [upper] voices various contrapuntal arts [Künste] aredisplayed [angebracht ... werden], and, so to speak, packed together on a point[Punkt], that is called in short – as with so-called pedal points [Orgelpunkten]’(Türk 1971, p. 321).23 In addition, in his chapter on modulation in Die Kunst desreinen Satzes, Kirnberger linked the pedal point specifically with tonal return,although he did not appear to have had a formal retransition in mind: ‘If thecomposition is very long and the memory of the main key has been lost to someextent by dwelling on other keys, one can use a so-called point d’orgue on thedominant before the final cadence, whereby the desire for the main key is notablyincreased’ (Kirnberger 1982, p. 136).24

An alternative contextual framework for the retransition pattern can be foundwithin the eighteenth-century partimento tradition, our nascent understanding ofwhich has been boosted by Robert Gjerdingen’s recent study of galant sche-mata.25 In Gjerdingen’s terms, the retransition pattern is a contrapuntallyworked out variant of the ubiquitous ‘Prinner’ schema (typically ˆ ˆ ˆ ˆ6 5 4 3− − − inthe soprano, in parallel tenths with the bass). Dubbed the ‘Stabat Mater’ onaccount of a notable instance of it in the closing ‘Amen’ of Pergolesi’s famouswork, the schema is characterised by its intricate 2–3 suspensions and properly

Ex. 9 Continued73 80

73



contains the distinctive inner-voice leading notes which we have frequently seenin the bassoon parts in the examples above. (According to Gjerdingen, this tenorvoice is implicit in many partimento examples – he adds it in own his realisations– and explicit in Bach’s reworking of Pergolesi’s composition.) Indelibly markedwith a residue of ‘high church music’, the ‘Stabat Mater’ frequently occurs overa dominant pedal (as it does in Pergolesi’s model).26 Since Gjerdingenapproaches the pattern from the opposite direction to the route taken by thisstudy – we began here with the phenomenon of the pedal point and its elabo-ration, while Gjerdingen starts with an outer-voice pattern which occasionallyacquires a pedal point – our network of illustrations overlaps only in the middle.He does not connect the pattern to retransitional procedures, for instance(although his network does account for the prominence of 6̂ as a melodic startingpoint). But the common ground reinforces the basic point: the fundamentalpremises of partimento scholarship – that the formulas drummed into composersover their years of training were also familiar and audible to listeners, and that aproper understanding of the most mundane aspects of composerly craft can shedlight on more exalted realms – apply here, too.

Probably the most compelling pedagogical insight into the handling of thesepedals, however, comes from Mozart himself, literally the product of the rela-tionship between a master and his pupil. Ex. 9 reproduces a passage for stringquartet from the ‘Attwood Studies’.27 Although this is not a retransition – it is apassage within the second key area which is shaping up for an important cadence– it illustrates well the treatment of a dominant pedal. Part (a) shows Attwood’soriginal version; Part (b) is Mozart’s reworking, composition as commentary(the bar numbers reflect the position of the passage in Attwood’s larger move-ment).28 The basic plan of Attwood’s version (which can be assumed to takeconceptual precedence) involves two phrases above the dominant pedal.The firstphrase, eight bars closing with an imperfect cadence, features a sequentialdescent in the first violin, with imitation in the second violin.The second phraserepeats the first an octave lower, but with a deceptive harmonic departure in thefifth and sixth bars, which sets up a cadential 4

6 and a close on the local tonic twobars later (Mozart’s reworking does not include this final close).29 No more thancompetent, Attwood’s version contains little of interest beyond the imitation ofthe two violins: the cello is completely static, its articulation seemingly haphaz-ard, while the viola is simply filler, with little integrity or distinction. If theAttwood passage seems almost sketch-like, Mozart’s rendering, on the otherhand, sounds as though it were torn from a fully worked out piece. In the firstphrase, based on the familiar descending-fifths sequence, the imitation betweenthe violins is supple, the cello breathes and the viola participates fully. Thesecond phrase recomposes rather than repeats the first; the imitation is nowbetween second violin and viola, the sequence reclothed, new possibilitiesrevealed. Even the sustained cello in bars 73–76, superficially identical toAttwood’s in articulation, emphasises the gulf between the two versions: inMozart’s, as the upper voices move down an octave for the second phrase and the

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imitation moves to the middle of the texture, there is a sense of going to the heartof the passage, uncovering something within; the cello is the anchor.

As a glimpse into the composer’s workshop,and as a demonstration of Mozart’sprowess, this pair of examples is fascinating; one suspects the snippet did not takeMozart long to write. And it is not hard to find real-life analogues – situationswhere this ‘Attwood’ configuration of a long dominant pedal before a conclusivecadence coincides with an apparently irrepressible urge to demonstrate.A strikinginstance occurs in theTrio of the Quartet in B�, K. 589 (Ex. 10).The reprise buildsto the final cadence via a drawn-out ii 5

6 chord, releasing finally into a gloriousdominant plateau, a huge expansion of what could – based on the analogous pointin the first half of the movement – have been a simple cadential 4

6. With exuber-ant didacticism and full contrapuntal mastery, however, Mozart seizes the

Ex. 10 Mozart, Quartet in B�, K. 589/iii, Trio, bars 48–66

557 6 7 6 7 6

521 7 6

cresc.

cresc.

simile

cresc.

49

cresc.



opportunity to stage no fewer than three different ways, of increasing complexity,to dress up a chain of 7–6 suspensions over a stationary bass.

The layers of demonstration are thick, too, in the ‘Et incarnatus est’ from theMass in C minor, K. 427. Mozart almost certainly composed the movement withthe voice of his wife in mind: Solomon calls the mass ‘a gift of love to her’ (1995,p. 270), and she was one of the soprano soloists in a performance of it at Salzburgin October 1783.30 Hermann Abert thought the ‘Et incarnatus’ itself vulgar, its‘coloratura trappings’ recalling ‘all the worst excesses of Neapolitan opera’.31

Most other authors are kinder – for Robert Levin, the movement contains ‘someof the most radiant, tender music [Mozart] ever penned’32 – but the double edge

Ex. 10 Continued

617 6

58 2 7 6 7 6 3 7 6

64

Menuetto da capo

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is revealed in connections sometimes made to specific arias, which run in twodirections: to virtuoso showpieces such as Konstanze’s ‘Marten aller Arten’,from the second act of Die Entführung aus dem Serail; and, most frequently, to thetender ‘Se il padre perdei’, its close sibling from Idomeneo, with which it sharesboth mood and concertante scoring.33 These facets meet in the extraordinarycadenza (bars 92–113), where, shedding all verbal sense in a huge melisma(possibly the longest Mozart ever composed), the soprano joins the obbligatoinstruments in a four-part tour de force of contrapuntally braided lines.34 Notsurprisingly, the cadenza is virtually a catalogue of techniques for handling adominant pedal, constructed in two broad waves of action (bars 92–101 and102–113). We shall focus here on the first of these phases (Ex. 11). Beginningwith a Corelli-style series of climbing 2–3 suspensions, made between oboe andsoprano, the composite line ascends from f2 to d3, peaking with the entrance ofthe flute (bar 97). From this high point issues the familiar descending pedalpattern: flute and oboe forming the suspensions, soprano embellishing the inner-voice leading notes and bassoon ornamenting the pedal with coruscating flour-ishes exchanged with the flute: a ‘Stabat Mater’ in excelsis.

As so often with Mozart, a distinctive surrounding rubs off on a well-wornformula. In this case, the pedal pattern actually represents a remarkable momentof memory, fusing together images from earlier in the movement: the lineardescent from6̂, harmonised by the circle of fifths, which opened the movement(stopping on V in bar 7, it was followed by the same concertante music that nowpicks up in bar 102); the soprano’s first words, ˆ ˆ ˆ5 6 5− − with a descending tail;and, most saliently, the retransition (bars 52–55; Ex. 12), a dominant pedalelaborated with descending 7–6 suspensions, whose connection to the cadenzadescent is underscored texturally by the role of the oboe: in both cases it takes the‘suspending’ voice, using the same pitches in the same register.35

It is also at this point, when the soprano breaks into regular semiquavers, thatthe scope of the cadenza and its melisma starts to become apparent. Ourfamiliarity with the conventional pattern plays an important part in this per-ception: we can forecast its end and extent as soon as it begins, and it is fromthis judgement that the deceptive move to �VI at the end of the phrase gainsadditional force. Partly a technical necessity, to prevent the dominant pedalfrom folding back to the tonic, and partly an affective darkening of colour(compare with bar 6), it also elongates the phrase by a bar, just at the pointwhere we expect the soloist’s breath to give out. The extension has a visceralimpact and goes to the heart of the meaning of the cadenza, and ultimately ofthe movement itself. For at the same time that the soloist leaves words behindand is treated almost as a purely instrumental force, we are aware as neverbefore of the singing body itself, of breath and strain.36 The ethereal becomesthe carnal, and the mystery of that transformation – a mystery to which Mozartwas invariably pulled – is made palpable: et homo factus est.37 The conspicuousmodes of virtuosity, performative and compositional, here transcend mere tech-nique and signal something deeper.



The point is reinforced most effectively through another illustration, this onefrom the reprise of the slow movement of the Wind and Piano Quartet in E�, K.452. A series of diminished seventh chords ascends almost bewilderingly until, ina moment of startling grace, the situation suddenly clarifies over a dominantpedal, leading us safely to the coda (Ex. 13, bars 109–113).The passage occupiesa formal position identical to that of the illustration from K. 589, and it sharesthat example’s strategic shattering of a template established earlier in the move-ment (bars 27–32, themselves tinged with the diminished seventh sonority,

Ex. 11 Mozart, Mass in C minor, K. 427, ‘Et incarnatus est’, beginning of cadenza(a) Bars 92–101(b) Reduction of bars 92–101

97

[fa]

Cadenza

Cadenza

Cadenza

92 Cadenza

Fl.

Fl.

Ob.

Ob.

Bsn

Bsn

Sop.

Sop.

(a)

92 Sop.

Ob.Bsn

[Sop.]

[Ob.]

Fl.

64( )

(b)

24 roman ivanovitch


provide the point of reference for bars 100–113, showing how the cadence mightmore simply be produced). Its affective quality, however, is from a different realmaltogether – that of the retransitions.38

With these examples still reverberating, then, let us return to this originalstimulus, the retransitional pedal points. It is revealing that these spots shouldbecome for Mozart a locus of complexity – for complexity here is indeed morethan ostentation. The heightening of contrapuntal artifice, the proliferation ofactive lines, means engagement, involvement; it yields a thickening or fullness.39

Counterpoint, which could suggest the mechanical or the faceless, actuallymeans quite the opposite. It suggests the human touch, manipulation: music

Ex. 12 Mozart, Mass in C minor, K. 427, ‘Et incarnatus est’, retransition(a) Bars 51–56(b) Reduction of retransition

ctus est. Et

51

Fl.

Ob.

Bsn

Vn 1

Vn 2

Sop.

Org.,Vlc., Cb.

Vla

54

73

Org.: tasto solo

(a)

52 Ob.Fl.

Bsn

Vlc., Cb., Org.

7 7 7 7 7 66666

(b)



Ex. 13 Mozart, Quintet in E� for Piano and Wind, K. 452/ii, bars 104–113

110

(Coda)

crescendo

crescendo

crescendo

crescendo

107

crescendo

104

Ob.

Cl. in B

Hn in E

Bsn

Pno

Ob.

Ob.

Cl. in B

Cl. in B

Hn in E

Hn in E

Bsn

Bsn

Pno

Pno

26 roman ivanovitch


which has been ‘worked on’. Unlike retransitions which dissipate in a soloEingang or dwindle to a tense stand-off (as occurs in the first movement of theEroica Symphony), retransitions such as those from K. 503 or K. 451 envelop us,carry us along. (The chordal seventh, whose gradual emergence we track and, ina sense, identify with, usually folds into the middle of the texture upon resolu-tion.) These retransitions suggest simultaneously the sensuous play of surfaceand the tapping of depths, a welling up: the sense of surfeit or surplus which bothBurnham and Solomon frequently detect in Mozart’s ‘beautiful’ music.40

This extra engagement, or heightened awareness, can carry over into thereturns themselves. To be sure, the small flexions of the retransition, its tensingand relaxing suspensions, and the complications of texture and counterpoint: allthis usually evaporates at the reprise, and the disparity is important. Strictlyspeaking, then, the retransition is no longer with us.Yet its effect remains: just asimportant as what returns is the manner of its returning.There may be elementsin the reprise which make this lingering impression manifest – the extra insis-tence of the piano accompanied by horns in K. 503 (bars 74–75), the melody inoctaves in the second reprise of K. 451 (bars 77–80) – but in fact there need notbe. A source of frustration only to our analytical proclivities, which insist ontreating mainly what we can read, we may not always be able to point to elementson a page or ‘sonic facts’ which correspond to this lingering effect; the residue ofthese moments of great beauty remains within us, the effect of memory exertedon the sounding present. In some cases, we may be able to say only that there isa sense of nostalgia or regret, consolation or restoration, at these returns (forMessiaen, these impressions permeate the slow movement of K. 451, which is‘full of nostalgic tenderness, of an amorous dream mingled with regret, of lostlandscapes, eclipsed suns – of which Mozart alone has the secret’ [Messiaen1997, p. 183]).41

A valedictory example can show how this heightened awareness can bedemonstrably carried over into a reprise, but in a way which is perhaps moresubtle than it first appears. It comes from the slow movement of the Piano Trioin B�, K. 502. Like K. 451, this movement has two retransitions (shown in Exs 14and 15), and, as in that other work, each finds a new way to compose thedistinctive descent.The first retransition, which folds into an unadorned reprise,is more intricate; but our interest here is in the apparently simpler secondretransition, whose ensuing recapitulation seems imbued with a special quality.At first glance, this appears reflective of the retransition in that it involves a lushtexture and an interplay of voices; and that is true enough. But what is reallypoignant in the return – what, with Roland Barthes, we might call the ‘punctum’(Barthes 1981, p. 27), and what truly seems to continue the sense of theretransition – is the sound of the cello, at the top of its register. The fixation onthe cello part here is not because the cello reflects something really tangible ofthe retransition, although it is possible that there is a subliminal connection ofthe crunch of B�, A� and G at the downbeat of bar 86 to the suspensions of theretransition (a connection reinforced by the realisation that the cello also retraces



in bars 85–87 – at pitch – the lineaments of the piano’s upper voice in bars82–84). Nor is it because the sound of the cello was somehow foregrounded inthe retransition. Rather, it is because one of the things these retransitions do isforeground the very quality of sound itself, attuning us to this particular aspectof the musical experience. This too is one of the hallmarks of the ‘beautiful’ inMozart. Speaking of moments of what she calls ‘self-conscious beauty’ (1999, p.288) in Così, for instance, Mary Hunter notes the ways in which they seem to‘draw attention to their sensuous surfaces and thus to the quality of the moments

Ex. 14 Mozart, Piano Trio in B�, K. 502/ii, first retransition(a) Bars 32–37(b) Reduction of retransition

35

simile

32

Retransition (descent)

(Reprise)

(a)

32

9 910 10

(b)

28 roman ivanovitch


Ex. 15 Mozart, Piano Trio in B�, K. 502/ii, second retransition(a) Bars 80–88(b) Reduction of retransition

86

83

(Reprise)

80Retransition (descent)

(a)

82

3 2 3 3 2 3

82

1 2

(b)



they enact’.42 Likewise, the moments which have been considered here –undoubtedly some of the most beautiful in Mozart – call attention to themselves,both to the act of returning and to the quality of that act. And, perhaps para-doxically, this is the trace they leave on what follows.

Burnham was quoted earlier on how returning to the tonic ‘is the easiest thingin the world’. He continues with a striking thought: that the challenge withretransitions, oddly enough, is to make them sound like hard work, as if some-thing difficult and important were being accomplished.43To this one can add thatit is no less an achievement to fashion a retransition which can console, restoreor transport, leaving in its wake regret even at the passing of a fleeting worldwhich nonetheless remains within us, exposing the thread of memory embeddedin the act of listening intently. Inhabiting the alchemical space between craft andart, the kind of retransition gesture traced over the course of this article isdistinctively Mozart’s; and, inscribing our own experiences upon them, it is hardnot to wonder what drew him time and again to create these ideal – evenidealised – returns. Perhaps it is here that scholarship gives way. I can do nobetter than to borrow the words of V. S. Naipaul: ‘I wished then to go back aswhole as I had come. But though a fresh start is seldom possible and the worldcontinues our private fabrication, departure is departure. It fractures; the bonehas to be set anew each time’ (Naipaul 1967, p. 215).

NOTES

The transcription from the ‘Attwood Studies’ in Ex. 9 is reproduced from the KritischerBericht for Wolfgang Amadeus: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicherWerke, Ser. X,Werkgr. 30, Bd. 1, ed.Daniel Heartz and Alfred Mann, with the kind permission of Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel.The extract in Ex. 12 is reproduced here from Mozart, Missa in c, KV 427 (417a), ed.Robert D. Levin, with the kind permission of Carus-Verlag, Stuttgart.

1. It is a coincidental resonance, most likely, but the closing chapter of Solomon(1995) is entitled ‘The Power of Music’.

2. See Solomon (1995), especially Chs 12 (‘Trouble in Paradise’) and 24 (‘FearfulSymmetries’); Hunter (1999), pp. 285–98; and Burnham (2005), pp. 39–52. Hunt-er’s investigation of Così is intertwined eventually with an earlier study by Burnham(1994).

3. Hunter (1999, p. 287) is even more blunt: ‘[i]n their helplessness in the face ofMozart’s unbelievably gorgeous music, these critics [Alfred Einstein, GeraldAbraham and others] abandon any attempt to make dramatic sense of thegorgeousness and seem to want to outdo each other in their race to leave boththe characters and Da Ponte behind’. For his part, Solomon (1995, p. 365), modestlysuggests that ‘all we can do is to offer a few examples from [Mozart’s] portfolio of thebeautiful’; but his magisterial account does considerably more than that.

4. See Caplin (1998), p. 157. Since all development sections must eventually return tothe tonic anyway, Caplin would prefer to reserve the term ‘retransition’ for thosecases in which a genuine ‘retransition function’ is expressed through a dedicatedpassage, typically a complete phrase or theme-like unit.

30 roman ivanovitch


5. See Shamgar (1981) and Burstein (2006), p. 66.

6. As Burstein (2006) has shown, even Beethoven himself was not immune to thistemptation: his recomposition of the Octet forWinds, Op. 103, as the String Quintet,Op. 4, turned ‘old’-style (p. 68) retransitions into newer, more seamless ones.

7. See Spitzer (1996) and Burnham (2001).

8. Not to be overlooked is Meyer’s important study of what he calls ‘coordination’(1982, p. 72): the rupturing or supplanting of a previously established process by anew pattern, which nonetheless terminates at the point implicated by the originalprocess. His investigation is based in large part upon (fast-tempo) retransitionalpassages in Mozart (and we will make use of his concept in the discussion of K. 503below). Overall, however, the essay is less an encapsulation of a distinctivelyMozartian manner of returning than the revelation of a compositional strategy mostconveniently exposed at retransition points.

9. By Eingang is meant a connective melodic thread or flourish, usually short, some-times improvised or improvisatory in character.

10. A more subtle aural connection is made by means of the piano’s figuration in therecapitulation (bars 272–276). Although the pattern used there literally recalls bars102–106 (the parallel point in the ‘solo exposition’), the texture, semiquavers inoctaves, most immediately calls to mind the retransition – the only previous placein the Concerto at which this texture has been employed.

11. Although it does not project clearly out of the general imitative haze, there is a smallhigher-level canon between the upper and lower pairs of voices in bars 71–73(indicated in the reduction by the arrow).

12. Kinderman’s (2006, p. 53) assignation of ‘sonata form without development’ tothis movement should probably be qualified as a concerto-sonata form withoutdevelopment.

13. ‘Une admirable transition: sur les tenues grasses des cors faisant pédale de domi-nante, le piano égrène des arpèges appoggiaturés dignes des plus belles Études deChopin’.

14. Levin convincingly (and, to judge from some older recordings of K. 503, notwithout reason) offers these bars as prototypical of a kind of ‘sketch-like’ writing inthe piano concertos – ‘passages in which melodic and rhythmic activity suddenlyslacken without obvious dramatic or expressive motivation’ – which invites elabo-ration in performance (his point of comparison is the retransitional standing on thedominant from the slow movement of the Clarinet Concerto in A, K. 622, bars55–59, in which embellishments are already written into the solo part). See Levin(1990), pp. 274–6.

15. At any point here, Mozart could have worked in a simple connective Eingang. Forcomparison, see the retransition of an earlier concerto slow movement in F major,from the Concerto for Flute and Harp, K. 299 (bars 53–57).

16. See Spitzer (1996), p. 25.

17. Keller (1970), p. 196, also hears this as an upbeat bar.

18. No one has written on this topic with more insight than Rosen. A focal statementis found in Rosen (1991).



19. A related investigation of the intersection of Mozartian display with ostensiblefunctionality can be found in the present author (2008), pp. 181–218.

20. For a discussion of the tangled interrelations of these terms in the eighteenthcentury, see Fuller (2001).

21. See Türk (1971). The pedal pattern in question appears as his second example onpp. 322–3. It is striking that two pages later (p. 325) there appears a pedal patternattributed to Mozart (chromatically rising parallel sixths over a pedal D), althoughTürk does not identify a specific composition.

22. ’Die Franzosen nennen solches: point d’orgue; ohne Zweiffel, weil es aus Orgeln sehrgebräuchlich, dergleichen Claves lange Zeit mit dem Pedal anzuhalten, und darübermit beiden Händen allerhand Variationes, und fremde Syncopationes zu machen’.Girdlestone’s allusion to organ-style extemporisation in the pedal point of K. 503will be recalled.

23. ‘Nur alsdann, wenn der Baß, besonders vor dem Schlusse eines Tonstückes, dieDominante oder die Tonica mehrere Takte hindurch aushält, während in denübrigen Stimmen mancherlei kontrapunktische Künste angebracht, und gleichsamauf einen Punkt zusammen gedrängt werden, das heißt mit Einem Worte: bei sogenannten Orgelpunkten’.

24. This quotation comes from vol. 1 (1771).

25. See Gjerdingen (2007).

26. See Gjerdingen (2007), pp. 439–47.

27. See Mozart (1965), pp. 244–5 (Attwood) and p. 253 (Mozart).The Attwood extractrepresents bars 65–80 of a longer composition, an incomplete sonata-form move-ment which peters out near the end of the development section. Heartz and Mann,in the Kritischer Bericht (1969, p. 85), speculate that the movement is the openingAllegro of a hypothetical quartet in G major: portions of a minuet/trio and avariation-set finale are also extant, and a slow movement in C major can be inferredfrom Mozart’s corrections. The fragments of Attwood’s quartet, part of the culmi-nation of his studies with Mozart, are collected as pp. 243–52 of the transcriptionin the NMA.

28. Although Mozart made many minor corrections directly on Attwood’s exercises, incertain passages, such as the dominant pedal discussed here, he crossed outAttwood’s version altogether and demonstrated his own improved reworking sepa-rately (in the present instance, he crossed out and reworked bars 65–78). Mozart’srecompositions for this movement are all found on a single manuscript page (p. 253of the NMA transcription).

29. Since 3̂ rather than 1̂ occurs in the melody on the downbeat of bar 80, one mightassess the closure at this point as provisional – and the passage which follows, withits fanfare flourishes and expanded cadential progression, is indeed dedicated toproducing an unequivocal cadence, which arrives eventually in bar 97. One couldeven argue that the cadence scheduled for bar 80 is evaded, in which case it is wrongto speak at all of closure in bar 80 (in this reading, the fanfare supplants rather thanalters the expected melodic close; this interpretation might draw support from thesense that bars 90–97 are an elongated echo of bars 77–80, a form of backtrackingoften associated with the evaded cadence). Regardless of how one reads bar 80 and

32 roman ivanovitch


the stretch to bar 97, however, the basic point remains: the cadence projected for bar80, and with which the long dominant pedal beginning in bar 65 is embroiled, is anemphatic, form-defining one.

30. The ‘Et incarnatus est’ is unfinished in Mozart’s autograph, and the movement isnot found in any orchestral parts for the Salzburg performance on 26 October 1783.There is no reason to doubt Constanze’s implicit closeness to the movement,however. Note also that since Mozart did complete the soprano, obbligato andbass/organ parts for the movement, as well as the introductory and concludingcontribution of the strings (bars 1–18 and 113–119), the passages discussed beloware essentially in finished form and involve little editorial conjecture (see, however,n. 35, relating to Ex. 12).

31. See Abert (2007), p. 834.

32. See Levin, foreword to Mozart (2005), p. viii.

33. ‘Se il padre perdei’ also includes a horn obbligato, however. On these opera connec-tions, see Corneilson (2003), p. 126. Corneilson describes the ‘Et incarnatus’ as a‘reworking’ of Ilia’s aria. Levin (in Mozart 2005, p. ix) suggests a link to Susanna’s‘Deh vieni, non tardar’ from Figaro, which shares key, metre and scoring with the ‘Etincarnatus est’.

34. The cadenza does not set the record for sheer number of notes in a Mozart melismabut, at well over a minute in performance, it surely has the greatest duration.

35. The contribution of the uppers strings at this point is conjectural, and editorialcompletions of bar 54 (where the entrance of the bass invites the participation of thefull string force) range from thick, sustained doublings of the main notes of theobbligato configuration (by H. C. Robbins Landon for Peters [1956]) to moreindependently conceived support (see, for example, Helmut Eder’s reconstructionin the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe [1983]; Maunder [1990] actually introduces the stringsin the middle of bar 53, before the bass support arrives). For its unobtrusiveelegance, I have chosen for Ex. 12 the completion by Levin in Mozart (2005), p.133.

36. The phenomenon of word effacement through melisma or sustained vocal tone(‘pure voice’) has been termed ‘overvocalization’ by Lawrence Kramer. In thenineteenth-century song tradition that he examines, it is ‘associated with “emo-tional and metaphysical extremes” ’; Kramer (2002), p. 63. For a related discussionof melisma in seventeenth-century opera, see Calcagno (2003).

37. See Abert (2007), p. 743: ‘[F]rom a very early age, the mystic in him was as active asthe dogmatist, a development clear from the sacred works of his youth ... . Here it isthe sections of a mystical character such as the “Qui tollis” and “Et incarnatus est”which ... afford the most striking evidence of their creator’s depth of experience’.

38. It is hard not to hear a resonance also with the slow variation movement of the PianoConcerto in B�, K. 450: in one of the great strokes of the movement, the approachto the coda, in the final phrase of the last variation, is similarly marked by a ruptureof the established formal proportions – in this case an exquisite protraction –through an ascending series of diminished seventh chords (bars 95–101). The twoworks, K. 450 and K. 452, were completed perhaps within a week of each other inMarch 1784.



39. Compare with Rosen on the retransition of K. 593 (see again Ex. 8): ‘[a]s the otherinstruments enter with a new sequence that leads directly back to the main theme,we find four completely different kinds of rhythm superimposed in a contrapuntaltexture at once complex and deeply touching’ (1997, p. 286).

40. The impression of surplus is quite literal in the cadenza to ‘Et incarnatus est’. Afterthe pedal passage examined above, the obbligato instruments reprise the music frombar 7, with the soprano now superimposed upon the texture.

41. ‘En contraste total avec le fierté du début, le mouvement lent ... est tout empli detendresse nostalgique, de ce rêve amoureux mêlé de regret, de paysages perdus, desoleils effacés – dont Mozart a le secret’.

42. See Hunter (1999), p. 287. Compare with Spitzer, who argues that retransitions areeffective in part because, viewed texturally rather than tonally, ‘they “stick out” ofthe music’ ... . [R]ather than promoting continuity, [retransitions] tend actually torupture form’ (1996, p. 20).

43. See Burnham (2001), p. 140.

REFERENCES

Abert, Hermann, 2007: W. A. Mozart, trans. Stewart Spencer, ed. Cliff Eisen(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).

Barthes, Roland, 1981: Camera Lucida, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hilland Wang).

Burnham, Scott, 1994: ‘Mozart’s felix culpa: Così fan tutte and the Irony ofBeauty’, Musical Quarterly, 78/i, pp. 77–98.

______, 2001: ‘The Second Nature of Sonata Form’, in Suzannah Clark andAlexander Rehding (eds), Music Theory and Natural Order: From the Renais-sance to the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress), pp. 111–41.

______, 2005: ‘On the Beautiful in Mozart’, in Karol Berger and AnthonyNewcomb (eds), Music and the Aesthetics of Modernity: Essays (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press), pp. 39–52.

Burstein, L. Poundie, 2006: ‘Recomposition and Retransition in Beethoven’sString Quintet, Op. 4’, Journal of Musicology, 23/i, pp. 62–96.

Calcagno, Mauro, 2003: ‘Signifying Nothing: On the Aesthetics of Pure Voice inEarly Venetian Opera’, Journal of Musicology, 20/iv, pp. 461–97.

Caplin, William E., 1998: Classical Form: a Theory of Formal Functions for theInstrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (Oxford and NewYork:Oxford University Press).

Corneilson, Paul, 2003: ‘Mozart as a Vocal Composer’, in Simon Keefe (ed.),The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress), pp. 118–30.

Fuller, David, 2001: ‘Organ Point’, in Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds), TheNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, vol. 18 (London:Grove), pp. 658–9.

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Girdlestone, C. M., 1970: ‘From “The Twenty-first Concerto” ’, in WolfgangAmadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 503: the Score of the NewMozart Edition, Historical and Analytical Essays, ed. Joseph Kerman (NewYork: W. W. Norton), pp. 164–75.

Gjerdingen, Robert O., 2007: Music in the Galant Style (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press).

Heartz, Daniel, and Mann, Alfred, 1969: Kritischer Bericht forWolfgang Amadeus:Neue Ausgabe sämtlicherWerke, Ser. X,Werkgr. 30, Bd. 1 (Kassel: Bärenreiter),p. 85.

Heinichen, Johann David, [1728] 1969: Der Generalbass in der Komposition(Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag).

Hunter, Mary, 1999: The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna: a Poetics ofEntertainment (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

Keller, Hans, 1970: ‘K. 503:The Unity of ContrastingThemes and Movements’,in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto in C Major, K. 503: the Score ofthe New Mozart Edition, Historical and Analytical Essays, ed. Joseph Kerman(New York: W. W. Norton), pp. 176–200.

Kinderman, William, 2006: Mozart’s Piano Music (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress).

Kirnberger, Johann Philipp, 1982: The Art of Strict Musical Composition,trans. David Beach and Jurgen Thym (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress).

Kramer, Lawrence, 2002: Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History (Berkeleyand Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press).

Kramer, Richard, 1991: ‘Toward Mozart’, 19th-Century Music, 15/ii, p. 93.Levin, Robert D., 1990: ‘Instrumental Ornamentation, Improvisation and

Cadenzas’, in Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie (eds), PerformancePractice: Music after 1600 (New York: W. W. Norton), pp. 267–91.

Messiaen, Olivier, 1997: Traité de rythme, de couleur et d’ornithologie (1949–1992)en sept tomes, vol. 4 (Paris: Éditions Musicales Alphonse Leduc).

Meyer, Leonard B., 1982: ‘Process and Morphology in the Music of Mozart’,Journal of Musicology, 1/i, pp. 67–94.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1965: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, ed. ErichHertzmann, Cecil Oldman, Daniel Heartz and Alfred Mann, Ser. X,Werkgr.30, Bd. 1 (Kassel: Bärenreiter).

______, 2005: Missa in c,KV 427 (417a), ed. Robert D. Levin (Stuttgart: Carus).Naipaul, V. S., 1967: The Mimic Men (New York: Macmillan).Rosen, Charles, 1991: ‘Radical, Conventional Mozart’, NewYork Review of Books,

19 December, pp. 51–9.______, 1997: The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, expanded edn (New

York: W. W. Norton).Rothstein, William, 1989: Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer).Shamgar, Beth, 1981: ‘On Locating the Retransition in Classic Sonata Form’,

Music Review, 42, pp. 130–43.



Sisman, Elaine, 1993: Mozart: the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press).

Solomon, Maynard, 1995: Mozart: a Life (New York: HarperCollins).Spitzer, Michael, 1996: ‘The Retransition as Sign: Listener-Orientated

Approaches toTonal Closure in Haydn’s Sonata-Form Movements’, Journalof the Royal Musical Association, 121/i, pp. 11–45.

Tovey, Donald Francis, 1949: ‘Some Aspects of Beethoven’s Art Forms’, in TheMain Stream of Music and Other Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1949), pp. 271–97.

______, 1970: ‘The Classical Concerto’, in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, PianoConcerto in C Major,K.503: the Score of the New Mozart Edition,Historical andAnalytical Essays, ed. Joseph Kerman (New York: W. W. Norton), pp. 137–63.

Türk, Daniel Gottlob, 1971: Anweisung zum Generalbaßspielen, ed. BernhardBilleter (Amsterdam: Frits Knuf).

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTOR

Roman Ivanovitch is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Indiana Univer-sity. His research focusses on the music of Mozart and Classical form.

ABSTRACT

In recent years scholarly attention has become attuned to the notion of the‘beautiful’ in Mozart: studies by Scott Burnham, Mary Hunter and MaynardSolomon have drawn attention to passages of sumptuous beauty, a hallmark ofthe composer’s style. The present study amplifies this concern by focusing on acharacteristic Mozartian gesture, noteworthy for being at once prosaically func-tional and conspicuously, richly (over-)composed: a type of retransition proce-dure involving a contrapuntally braided linear descent over a dominant pedal.One of a family of ‘standing on the dominant’ techniques, the gesture is mostdistinctively found in slow movements, whose pacing allows the descent’s tinyharmonic and contrapuntal jolts to resonate and be fully absorbed. In the contextof Mozart scholarship, these underexplored sections are particularly sensitive, forthey lie at the seam between art and craft: some of the most dazzling, memorablepassages in Mozart, they are nonetheless grounded in everyday compositionalprocedures, markers of quotidian expertise. Using examples from the PianoConcertos in D (K. 451) and C (K. 503), the PianoTrio in B� (K. 502) and otherworks, this study elucidates the basic technical features of these passages. Theaim is to place any more effusive discussions of Mozart’s artistry on the firmestpossible footing.

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arta retranzitiei mozart

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