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The Cadenza as Parenthesis: An Analytic ApproachAuthor(s): Matthew Bribitzer-Stull

Source: Journal of Music Theory, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Fall, 2006), pp. 211-251Published by: on behalf of theDuke University Press Yale University Department of MusicStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40283099Accessed: 01-11-2015 23:34 UTC

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The Cadenza as Parenthesis

An

Analytic Approach

Matthew Bribitzer-Stull

Abstract

Conventional

wisdom

holds that the

cadenza is a musical

parenthesis.

Like

inguistic parenthetical

remarks,cadenzas may be engaging, illuminating,and insightful,butthey are

not

regarded

as intrinsic o struc-

tural

coherence.

Perhaps

or this

reason,

the

topic

has

remained

parenthetical

n

modernmusic

theory

discourse.

Despite

the connotations

this

neglect

implies,

the

cadenza traditionstands as

one endowed

with

great

musical

richness,

worthy

of further

analytic

investigation.

This article seeks

to define

the dual function

of the cadenza.

Specifically,

he cadenza

is heard

simultaneously

as a

local,

harmonic

vent and

as a

global,

formal event. On

the local

level,

it

may

either

prolong

one

harmony

or

progress

from

one to another.

On the

global

level,

it can serve a

variety

of formal functions:

highlighting

alient

cadences;

opening

a

space

for

virtuosic

display;

and

developing,

relating,

and

rehearing

elements of the

concerto

movement

proper.

The cadenza's

dual

function

grants

it

a

potential

far

exceeding

the

simple

characterization

as

parenthesis.

Skillfully

omposed

cadenzas

exploit

the tension

between

local and

global

functions and can

initiate subtle

yet

profound

rehearings

of music

outside

cadenza

space

rehearings

that

give

us

pause

to reconsider both the

cadenza-as-parenthesis

metaphor

and

the artificial

boundaries

we construct

among

composer,

performer,

nd

analyst.

Introduction

conventional

wisdom

holds

that the

cadenza

is a musical

parenthesis.

Taken

at face

value,

this

generalization

leads

us to believe

that cadenzas

how-

ever

engaging,

illuminating,

and

insightful

they

might

be

-

are not

intrinsic

to

structural

coherence.

Perhaps

because

of this

view,

the

topic

has remained

parenthetical

in modern

music

theory

discourse:

Cadenzas,

long

the

prov-

ince of

performers

and

musicologists,

have

rarely

been studied

in

analytic

detail;1 or theorists, they have been relegated to the realm of footnotes and

1 Performers

and

musicologists

studying

cadenzas

usually

follow

one

of two

tracks:

the

history

of the

cadenza

as a

performance

and

compositional

tradition

(examples

include

Badura-Skoda,

Drabkin,

and

Jones

2001;

Wang

1997, 1-58;

and

Isaacs

1986,

39-41),

or the

question

of

stylistic

authen-

ticity

in

selecting

or

writing

a

cadenza;

the

majority

of this

second-track

research

relies

on

eighteenth-century

writ-

ings

to determine

stylistic

norms.

Most often

cited are Turk

1982,

297-309;

Quantz

1985, 179-95;

and

Kollmann

1973,

22-23,

all of whom

provide guidelines

for

writing

cadenzas.

While some authors

do include

rudimentary analyses

of

cadenza

form,

thematic

content,

and/or

harmonic

content,

they rarely engage

the

larger

context

of the movement.

See

Schrade

1995, 59-63;

Wang

1997;

Robbins

1991;

Melkus

1991;

and Matthews

1978.

Journal

of

Music

Theory

50:2,

Fall 2006

DOI 10.1215/00222909-2008-016 © 2009 byYaleUniversity 21 1






212

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

afterthoughts,

their tonal structures

and

formal

functions mentioned

in

pass-

ing,

if

at all.2

Despite

the connotations this

neglect

implies,

the cadenza

tra-

dition stands as one endowed with great musical richness worthyof further

investigation.

Indeed,

a

monograph-length analytic study

of

the

harmonic, thematic,

and

formal

components

of the cadenza would

hardly

suffer for lack of new

ground

to break.

My

task in

the current

context, however,

must be

more lim-

ited. In

short,

I

begin

with the

following

question:

Is

the

parenthesis

meta-

phor

viable for tonal

music,

and

how,

precisely,

does it

apply

to the cadenza?

To address

this,

I

consider

how

the cadenza interacts within its

movement

proper

both as a local-level harmonic

event and

as a

global-level

formal event.

In

so

doing,

I

introduce a new

analytical

model that will

ultimately

serve to

elucidate nine tonal/formal cadenza types.Finally,I conclude the studywith

a series of

analyticalvignettes designed

to model a

variety

of tonal and formal

possibilities

for the

cadenza.

Musical

parenthesis

Our musical discourse is rich with

linguistic

influences:

we use such words as

"phrase,"

"statement,"

and

"sentence"

frequently;

we

hypothesize

grammar

and

syntax

for

common-practice

music;

we

engage

semiotics to understand

musical

meaning;

and we often refer to music itself

as

a

language

a mode

of

expression

or even

communication.3 Of

course,

the

mapping

between lan-

guage

and music is

hardly

isomorphic.

While

linguistic

concepts

that reside

in

the realm of

pure

sound

(phonology)

and

performance

(rhetoric)

have

been

commandeered with relative ease

by

music

scholars,

the

application

of

linguistic

notions

of

structure

(syntax

or

grammar)

and

meaning

(semantics)

to

music has

proved

more

problematic.4

2

Only

three articles

concerning

tonal

structure focus on

the

cadenza: Swain

1988,

which treats

Mozart's

techniques

for

reinforcing

Vf,

and Drabkin

1996 and

1998,

which

provide

a

quick

look at

some tonal

structures within

Mozart's

piano

cadenzas.

Among

recent scholars of form, Charles Rosen

(1980)

does

not mention

cadenzas as a

formal unit at

all;

Douglass

Green

(1975,

242)

and

William

Caplin

(1998,

243

and

251)

mention

only

that the cadenza

interrupts

the final

ritornello;

and James

Hepokoski

and

Warren

Darcy

(2006

600-2)

make

only

brief

mention of

the

cadenza,

arguing

that it lies

outside of

the formal

space

in

the movement

of

which

it is a

part.

Caplin

(1998,

281

n.

51)

admits that a

form-functional

study

of the

cadenza remains

to be done.

One such

exhaustive

study,

Robert Forster

1992

(153-406),

does

treat formal

implications

of

cadenzas,

but

only

those

of

Mozart and

Beethoven.

3 Fora

cursory

overview,

see

Sloboda

1990,

which sketches

out

music's

phonological,

syntactic,

and semantic com-

ponents

and their

analogies

to

language,

in

particular,

the

semantics of

meaning-filled

association with coincidental

musical

experience.

4

For some different

perspectives

on

these

issues,

see Ler-

dahl and Jackendoff

1983,

Swain

1995,

Dempster

1998,

and

Patel

2003.






MatthewBribitzer-Stull

~


213

Linguistic

metaphors

also

permeate

our musical discourse.5

Many

of

us who teach

undergraduate theory,

for

instance,

illustrate

cadential func-

tions for our students by likening them unto punctuation (a period for the

perfect

authentic

cadence,

a

question

mark for the half

cadence,

etc.).6

We

also

speak

of

musical voices voices

narrating,

voices

dialoging,

and tone

of

voice.

Despite

music's

often-suggestive

similarity

to

language,

however,

we

must

guard against

thoughtless

application

of

linguistic

terminology

to musi-

cal contexts.

Hence,

my

first task is to better understand the

linguistic phe-

nomenon

of

parenthesis

and

then to examine the contexts

in which we

might

understand

its

operation

in

tonal

music.

In

short,

a

parenthetical

phrase

in

language

constitutes

a nonessential

insertion.

Or,

more

fully,

the function

of

parentheses

"is o

present

that

[paren-

thesized] element as extraneous to a minimal interpretation of the text, as

inessential

material

that can

be omitted without

affecting

the well-formedness

and

without

any

serious

loss of information.

They provide

an

elaboration,

illustration,

refinement

of,

or comment

on,

the content of the

accompanying

text"

(Huddleston

and Pullum

2002,

1748).7

In the context

in

which

we are

considering

them,

parentheses

also

have other notable

features:

They

come

in

pairs,

they

can include

various

type

of elements

from inflectional suffixes

to

complete

paragraphs,

and

they

can be

either

integrable

(i.e.,

replaced

with

commas

without

affecting

the

meaning

of the

sentence,

like this

parentheti-

cal)

or

nonintegrable.

By

convention,

parentheses

do

not

begin

sentences,

and

nested

parentheses

are avoided

as a matter

of

clarity.Finally,parentheses

bear

a functional

similarity

to other

forms

of

punctuation

dashes

or delim-

iting

commas,

for instance

that

often

imply

less insulation

from the main

thought

(see

Figure

1

.8

Of

course,

the

written

parentheses

are

simply

a stand-in

for the

perfor-

mance

marker

usually

a

pause

or

change

of tone

-

that indicates

an inser-

tion

in

spoken

language.

Despite

both the

written and

spoken

indicators,

it

is the

setting apart,

the context

in which

the insertion

is

made,

that makes

it

parenthetical;

punctuation

and

rhetoric exist

simply

for

clarity.

n

context,

the

parenthetical

must

invoke a sense

of

interruption

a statement

related,

but

tangential,

to

the

point

at hand

is

being

added

to an otherwise

focused train

of

5 For

one,

see

Mak

2003,

which discusses

musical

para-

taxis. Heinrich

Schenker

(1979)

is

perhaps responsible

for

suggesting

many

such

musical

metaphors

in

his oft-cited

passage

from

Die freie Satz.

"In

the art of

music,

as

in

life,

motion

toward the

goal

encounters

obstacles, reverses,

dis-

appointments,

and involves

great

distances,

detours,

expan-

sions,

interpolations,

and,

in

short,

retardations

of all kinds.

Therein lies

the source

of all artistic

delaying,

from which

the

creative

mind can derive

content

that is ever

new"

(5).

One can

even find

parentheses

marked on some of Schen-

ker's

graphic

analyses

(see,

e.g.,

Example

2 in

this

article).

6 Note

that this treatment derives

from a similar

eighteenth-

century usage.

See

Caplin

2004, 103-4,

which

mentions

some of the

problems

with the

cadence-as-punctuation

metaphor.

7 This

quotation

and the material

that follows was culled

from

Huddleston and Pullum

2002,

1748-51.

8

A

point

of interest: There are

languages

that

embody par-

enthetical

rhetoric

in

their

syntax.

Mbum,

a

language

of the

Niger-Congo family

spoken

in

Cameroon,

for

instance,

uses

"bracketed"

relative clauses whose insertion

point

and end

point are marked by delimiting words.






214

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC

THEORY

Figure

1.

Insertions

in

language

A

variety

of

ways

in which written

English

indicates an insertion are

underlined below.

The

Wagner

tuba (an instrument first crafted

in 1875

by Georg

Ottenheimer

for

Wagner's

Ring

orchestra)

is

notoriously

difficult to

play

in

tune.

The

Wagner

tuba

-

that wild beast of the orchestra

-

is

notoriously

difficult to

play

in

tune.

The

Wagner

tuba,

which is

on

loan

from

the

Chicago

Symphony

Orchestra,

is

notoriously

difficult

to

play

in tune.

(Cf.

"The

Wagner

tuba that is on loan from the

Chicago

Symphony

Orchestra

is

notoriously

difficult to

play

in

tune,"

a

statement without

an

insertion.)

thought.

And,

the

flow of information on either side

of

the

parenthesis

must

continue with semantic

clarity

and

syntactic

correctness.

This

cursory

definition

of

parenthesis

in

language

is

enough

to

suggest

a

number of musical

parallels.9

Most musicians

will be

able

to recall

pieces

that

include

points

of

contrast

or

digression

in which one musical

thought

seem-

ingly interrupts

another.

Moreover,

we

all

recognize parenthetical

rhetoric

in

music:

rough changes

in

texture, register, harmony,

or thematic

content;

linear-intervallicor

hypermetric patterns

broken off and later

resumed;

and

the fermata

before

a

cadenza,

to

name but a

few. The

sense

of

insertion

is most

clear when new

material

appears

within a musical statement

previously

heard.

See,

for

instance,

Example

1,

in

which Mozart's four-bar antecedent

phrase

is

followed

by

a

parallel

six-bar

consequent.

Given our

expectation

that the

consequent

will

mimic the antecedent with an

expansion

of

tonic

in the

first

three bars

leading

to a cadence in the

fourth,

mm. 7-8

(the

third and fourth

bars of the

consequent phrase)

come as

something

of

a

surprise

rather than

moving

toward the

expected

cadence,

they

continue to

prolong

tonic. Both

the

hypermetric

interruption

and sense of

harmonic stasis

in

comparison

to

the antecedent phrase suggest a viable hearing of these measures as paren-

thetical.

Although they

certainly

add

something

to the

music,

removing

them

does

not

damage

the

harmonic-contrapuntal yntax.

To

paraphrase

he

paren-

thesis

definition,

these measures

present

material

extraneous to a minimal

interpretation

of

Mozart's

ext,

material that can

be omitted

without

affecting

its

well-formedness and

without

any

serious loss

of

information

(although

not

9 We

might

extend our

punctuation

metaphor

further:

the

inserted,

self-quoted

themes

in

the

finale of

Mozart's Don

Giovanni or

Strauss's Ein

Heldenleben,

for

example,

require

that we make a distinction in our contextual interruptions

between

musical

parentheses

and musical

quotation

marks. See Hull 1998

(141)

for a discussion of

Brahms's

use

of

"parenthetical"

passages

to set off

allusions to other

composers' music.






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The

Cadenza as Parenthesis

215

^

Allegro

^ ^

^

P \ 2 3 4 /l

^*l»

(Ti

1^

JTj

fr^

1J

^

^

ÛJ

6

2

3 4

Example

1.

Mozart,

Piano Sonata

in C

major,

K.

279, III,

mm. 1-10

without

losing

a sense of Mozartean

elegance).

That

is,

mm. 7-8

provide

an

elaborationf the

syntax

and content of the

accompanying

text.

Of

course,

common-practice

tonal

music contains

so

many

familiar

pat-

terns

that the

suggestion

of

a

parenthetical

insertion is

not

dependent upon

a

repeated

musical

statement. The

interruption

of

intervening

material

between

members of a

stock harmonic

progression

(e.g.,

V|

moving

to

I)

functions

almost as

well. Such an

example

comes to us from

Heinrich Schenker's writ-

ings

(see

Example

2).10This music occurs in the rondo finale of Beethoven's

Sonata

in

Eb

major,op.

7.

In

m.

63,

unexpected

sfa

octaves

on

B^ ead to a rea-

sonable

goal,

the relative

C minor. In m.

154,

the B octaves

return,

but instead

of

passing

to

C,

they pause,

creating

the rhetorical

space

to set

up

a

parentheti-

cal

entrance

of

the

rondo theme

in E

major.

Schenker's

prose

(1979, 101)

refers to this

moment as

"adreamlike

digression

into

E

major"

and states that

"it is like an

awakening"

when

we return to

V|

of the tonic Eb

major.11

n this

case,

the

expansion

of the dominant

from V

(strongly suggested by

the octave

Bbs)

to

V5

is

interrupted

an

interruption signaled

by

the fermata's

pause

and

the altered

"tone of voice" caused

by

the

disjunctions

in

dynamics

and

register.The "open parenthesis"drops to a pianissimo dynamicand features

the middle-low

register,

making

the "close

parenthesis"clearly

audible

by

the

accented

leap

back

up

to

4

(Ab)

in the

upper register.

Likewise,

the

interruption

of familiar

formal

paradigms

may

also

sug-

gest parenthetical

insertion.

In

Example

3,

the sonata-form

uncture

between

transition

and

second tonal area

in

Schubert's

A-minor

allegro

for

piano,

four

10 Other authors

also

engage

the

notion of musical

paren-

theses

suggested

by

tonal structure.

See Laufer

1985;

Roth-

stein

1989,

passim

(which

couples

tonal and

hypermetric

factors

in

an

analysis

of musical

parentheses);

Brown

1993,

136; and Goldenberg 2001 (which focuses on enharmonic

reinterpretation).

11

Note

that

in

Example

2,

the Roman numeral

I in

the

example

is

misplaced

an

eighth

note

early.






216

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC

THEORY

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The Cadenza

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^^

^

Example

3. Musical

parenthesis by

formal

digression:

Schubert four-

hand

allegro

in

A

minor,

op.

144

"Lebensstürme,"

exposition

hands,

op.

144,

"Lebensstürme,"

s broached

by

an insertion.12The transition

sets

up

period-with-dissolving-consequent

ormal

rhetoric,

and the downbeat

of bar

81

achieves

a medial

caesura on the dominant.13Were this downbeat

to

be followed

by

the

customary

rest,

the

C-major

music

starting

in m. 138

would

sound

perfectly

appropriate

beginning

in

the next

measure,

given

the norms

of minor-mode

sonata

form in the

early

nineteenth

century.

The medial cae-

sura in bar

81,

however,

is filled or "stretched"

might

be a better

word

with the enharmonic

reinterpretation

of

G#

to Al?.

The sense of

melody

is sus-

pended

(the

melodic

void

creating

the

necessary

sense of

a

pause

or a

space

to markan insertion) in favor of the accompaniment patternto the upcoming

m. 89 theme

in

At.

This tonal-thematic

digression

lasts for some

fifty

measures

until

C,

as

upper

third

of Al?

bar 138)

arrives,

eading through

a

descending

fifths

sequence

to the

expected

second tonal area

in the mediant.

Thus,

the

"dreamlike"

Al?

an be

heard as a

parenthetical

insertion that

interrupts

the

middleground

motion

from the A minor tonic

to

the

C

major

mediant,

delay-

ing

the second

tonal area.

The

analytic

readings

above,

despite

their

merits,

are not without dif-

ficulties.

First,

they

seem

to

suggest

that

any interruption

or

discontinuity

is

grounds

for a

rhetorical

parenthesis.

To be

fair,

this

rhetorical

disjunction

should be present at both the beginning and the end of the insertion,just as

language pairs

the

open

and close

parentheses.

Thus,

the

resumption

of

musi-

cal

syntax

and

semantics

after the

interruption

should be marked as strenu-

ously

as the

original

interruption

itself,

a

requirement

music

analysis

has

not

12 The

reading

presented

by

this

analysis

was

suggested by

remarks Janet

Schmalfeldt

made

in

a

paper

on "music that

turns

inward"

(see

Schmalfeldt

2002).

13

Hepokoski

and

Darcy

2006

(93-116)

defines a

variety

of

transitional

structures,

including

the

"period

with

dissolving

consequent"

(101-2).

See also

Hepokoski

and

Darcy

1997

for a detailed discussion

of the medial caesura. The reader

should note that

my

use of these

concepts

does not

imply

that all form

analysis

within this

study

derives from

Hepoko-

ski and Darcy.






218

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

84

^_^

_ J ^

^

y

| |

r_rT1

t ^

Example4. Invertiblecounterpoint in the recapitulation to Mozart,Piano Sonata in C major,

K.

279, III,

mm.

84-96

always

adhered to.14

While we can all recall

speeches

in

which the

speaker

embarks

upon

a

tangent

or insertion

but

never

returns to the

original

train

of

thought

-

something possible

in

music,

too

(see

the

interruption

between

mm.

97-98ff. in

Haydn's

Piano Sonata no. 46 in A\>

major),

such

digressions

are

more

appropriate

(and

even

expected)

in

improvisation

than

in

a finished

score.

Despite

this

suggestion

that the strict

hierarchy

of

thought

demanded

bythe correct use of parenthetical insertions is not native to extemporaneous

human

cognition,

it is

something

we

demand

of

written

prose

and,

in

many

cases,

written music.

Second,

and

more

troubling,

events within the

parenthetical

statements

in

Examples

1-3

have connections

outside the

parentheses.

In

Example

1,

the

parenthetical

measures return at

the

opening

of the

recapitulation, although

here

the

consequent

phrase begins

with

the voices

inverted

(see

Example

4).

The first of the

"parenthetical"

measures

reappears

in

inversion

(they,

too,

work

in

double

invertible

counterpoint),

although

it is

the

responsibility

of

the

second

"parenthetical"

measure to

reinvert the

two lines back

to their

original placement.

Thus,

the

parenthesis

in

the

recapitulation

cannot

simply

be omitted withoutdamaging the structure of the

passage.

Likewise, n Exam-

ple

2,

we

see a

dashed slur

pointing

to an

enharmonic

G)t/Ab

onnection in

Schenker's

analysis.

This slur

implies

that the

material

within the

parenthesis

is

perhaps

more

intimately

connected with

the tonal

structure of

the music

14

One

might

criticize

William

Rothstein's

(among

others')

otherwise

elegant

insertions

mentioned above

(note

10)

for

their lack of

close

parentheses.

See,

for

instance,

Rothstein

1989

(88-89,

example

3.18),

in

which the

sense of

disjunc-

tion is

strong

for

the

open parenthesis

while the

close

paren-

thesis evokes little sense of rhetorical, harmonic, registrai,

textural,

or

phrase

rhythmic

disjunction.

The

emphasis

on

open parentheses

extends to

Whitmore 1991

(15),

which

asserts that

the

opening

of a

cadenza is a more

important

articulation than the

ending

since the

opening

formula

establishes

its status as

insertion.







~

The

Cadenza

as

Parenthesis

219

that

follows than would be usual for the

analogous

material inside and after a

linguistic parenthesis.

Finally,

the

recapitulation

of the

At

"parenthesis"

nto

F majorin the Schubertallegro (Example 3) suggests that the insertion is not

inessential to the

form;

that

it, too,

needs to

be

brought

into relation with

tonic to fulfill

the sonata

principle.

These obstacles

to the

application

of a musical

parenthesis metaphor

do not demand the

rejection

of

metaphoric language

after

all,

the

concept

of musical

parenthesis

has

persisted precisely

because of its

analytic

value so

much as caution

us in

applying cross-disciplinary erminology.

Despite

numer-

ous

similaritiesbetween

music and

language,

my

brief

analyses

have

suggested

that

the

concept

of

parenthesis,

when

applied

to

music,

raises some unan-

swered

questions:

What constitutes

a musical

analog

to the written

parenthesis

punctuation marks?Are both opening and closing disjunctions mandatory

for

parenthesis

to

operate

in a musical context? Does the material

in

a

musi-

cal

parenthesis

relate

more

strongly

to

that which

lies outside it than would

be normative

in a

linguistic

insertion?

Bearing

these

questions

in

mind,

let

us turn to the

cadenza the

practice

in tonal music most

widely

believed

to

exemplify

parenthesis.

In

speech,

a distinction

exists between

rhetorical insertions those

achieved

through performance

indications such as a

pause

or altered tone

of voice

and announced

insertions,

in

which

speakers explicitly

state their

intentions

(e.g.,

"Asan

aside,

allow me to mention

. .

.").

The cadenza's

strong

candidacy

for consideration as

a musical

parenthesis

is

because

it,

of all

con-

structions

in tonal

music,

most

closely approximates

the announced inser-

tion.

Reinforced

by

musical

convention,

the fermata

4

chord,

coupled

with the

onset of a

passage

lacking

orchestral

accompaniment

and

hypermetric

regu-

larity,15

n effect

"announces"

he

opening

of the

stereotypical

cadenza within

or

just

before the

final ritornello

of a concerto

movement,

ostensibly

answer-

ing

the

question

of what

constitutes a musical

analogy

to the written

parenthe-

sis

punctuation.

Likewise,

the resolution

of the

4

to a

root-position

dominant

(seventh),

often

embellished

by

a

melodic trill on

2

or

f

accompanied by

the

return

of the orchestra

and a

clear

hypermeter,

delimit its end

("Now,

back

to

my

main

point

.

.

.").16

Note that the

sense of rhetorical

pause

is still

pres-

ent both at the beginning (when the orchestra retardsinto and pauses at the

fermata

4

chord)

and at

the end

(when

the local harmonic motion

freezes

on V under

the

prolonged

melodic

trill).

Additionally,

our sense

of

harmony

informs the

parenthetical

hearing,

too,

as we

imagine

the cadenza

occurring

over

a

pedal

dominant

that

may

be

unplayed,

but not "unheard."17Within

15 Rothstein

1989

(279)

describes

the cadenza as a sort of

hypermeter-less

music.

16 Note

that the

V3

that resolves

the

opening

4

often

includes a

dominant seventh.

The

figures

"§"

or this resolu-

tion chord are used for simplicity's sake and are not intended

to

deny

the

presence

of a chorda

I

seventh.

17

This

interpretation

of the cadenza has been around since

at least the

eighteenth century.

See Kollmann 1973

(23

and

plate

10),

in

which the

figured

bass

presumes

that a bass 5

is heard

throughout

the cadenza.






220

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

the

parenthetical

space

delimited

by

this

conventional

musical

rhetoric,

we

expect

the soloist to

provide passage

work

and some melodic

elaboration.

Moreover,we expect the content of this musical parenthesis to change from

performance

to

performance,

being

perhaps improvised upon

the

spot.

As

any

experienced

musician

knows, however,

many

cadenzas do

not

conform

to the

prototype

sketched out above. Some

open

with the dominant

in

root

position

(Mendelssohn's

Violin Concerto

in D

minor,

III),

a

predomi-

nant

harmony

(Grieg's

and Schumann's

piano

concertos),

or another har-

mony

(the

cadenza from Rachmaninov'sPiano

Concerto

in

Fit

minor, I,

opens

with an

applied

Ü05 iv)

.

Others fail to

expand

V,

preferring

a

prolongation

of

tonic

(Dvorak's

"Quasi

Cadenza"

n

the Cello

Concerto, II,

moves

from I

to

vi),

a

progression

into V or I

(Schumann's

Introduction

and

Allegro

in D

minor), or another tonal formula altogether (the first and last harmonies of

Schumann's Violin

Fantasy

cadenza are

IV,

arguing,

at least

rhetorically,

or

a

prolongation

of the

predominant).

There are cadenzas that foreshadow

new material rather

than

recalling

old

(Copland's

Clarinet

Concerto).

There

are cadenzas

in

chamber music

(Mozart's

Quintet

for Piano and Winds

in

El?

major,

K.

452,

III),

solo sonatas

(Beethoven's

Sonata

in C

major, op.

2/3,

I),

symphonies

(Beethoven's

Symphony

in

C

minor,

I),

and

program

music

(the

violin solos in

Rimsky-Korsakov's

cheherazade)

There are cadenzas that

open

movements

(Liszt's

Piano Concerto

in

E\>

major,

I),

cadenzas that mark the

end of

the

development

(Mendelssohn's

Violin Concerto

in E

minor,

I),

and

cadenzas in

non-sonata

forms

(Rachmaninov's

Piano

Concerto

in C

minor,II)

There are

accompanied

cadenzas

(Mozart's

Piano Concerto in C

major,

K.

503,

III),

cadenzas

"quasi

antasia"

(Brahms,

Piano

Concerto

in D

minor,

III),

and

cadenzas

titled

in

parentheses

(the

first cadenza

in

Liszt's

Piano Concerto

in A

major)

There are concertos

whose

first

movements contain

multiple

cadenzas

(Tchaikovsky's

Piano

Concerto in Bb

minor)

and concertos whose

first

move-

ments contain no

cadenzas

(Mozart's

Clarinet

Concerto).

There are even con-

certo

movements

with cadenzas for

members of

the orchestra

(Tchaikovsky's

Piano

Concerto in G

major,

II,

contains cadenzas for violin

and

cello).

With all of

these

exceptional

cases,

the cadenzas have

been written into

the

score a

matter

either of

expediency

(when

there

is

more than one solo-

ist, though even here there are exceptions, as in the three cadenzas to be

improvised

in

Mozart's

Concerto for

Flute and

Harp

in

C

major,

K.

299)

or

of

compositional

control.

That

composers

such as

Beethoven

grew

increasingly

concerned

with the

content

of

the

cadenza

proper

and

resorted to

writing

it

out

suggests

that

the

cadenza material

was not

parenthetical

(that

is,

inessen-

tial)

to

the

formal

and/or

tonal

structure.18As

Examples

2

and 3

suggested,

18

See

Kramer

1991

(130)

for

a discussion

of

Beethoven's

redefinition

of the

performer's

voice

in

the

cadenza.

Badura-

Skoda,

Drabkin,

and

Jones

2001

(784)

notes that as

early

as Caccini (1589), composers, unsure of performers' good

taste,

wrote out

their cadenzas.

Whitmore 1991 notes

that

after

Beethoven's

"Emperor"

Concerto,

the

composer

never

wrote another

cadenza

(or

concerto),

and this concerto had

a written-out cadenza with instructions to the performer not







~

The

Cadenza as Parenthesis 221

there

may

be a fundamental distinction between two

types

of insertion those

that are

truly

inessential,

lacking long-range

connections to

outside

music,

and those whose absence would damage the tonal or formal cohesion of the

movement

proper.

Thus,

our most

important

task

in

analyzing

a cadenza is

to

ask whether it

is essential

or

inessential in two contexts: on the local

level

for

bridging

the

gap

between two vertical sonorities

(most

usually

V4

and

V3

or V

and

I)

and

on the

global

level

of

the

musical form in

which it occurs.

The cadenza as

tonal

parenthesis

Let

us turn first to

the

local-level,

harmonic consideration

of

the

prototypi-

cal cadenza's

V4-3

formula. In

many

cadenzas,

it

is

clear that

passage

work

merelyelaboratesthe cadential% dding nothing in the wayof tonal structure

(see

Example

5a).

Even the

appearance

of an

apparent

succession of tonic

and

dominant

(-seventh)

chords can

be

explained

as

upper-voice

elaborations

of the

dominant above

an

imagined

pedal

5 a common

enough pattern

in

tonal

music

(see

Example

5b).

More extended

cadenzas, however,

often

exhibit

their own tonal

structure,

a matter

alluded to

by

Schenker

(see

Exam-

ple

6).

Here,

Schenker

(1979)

illustrates how a brief cadenza

composes

out

the dominant.

His

analytic

commentary

on this

example proves

valuable for

our

present

discussion:

"Even he so-called elaborated

cadenza

(at

a

fermata)

has a

structure of

its own. ...

In order to

gain

an

understanding

of such a

pas-

sage

and its

bass,

it

is

necessary temporarily

to

disregard

the bass tone which

underlies the cadenza,

usually

V4-3" (88). Schenker

suggests

that the cadenza

and the

ensuing

cadence

comprise

a

complete

harmonic motion

from tonic

through

a

predominant

to

dominant and back to tonic.

This

reading gives

us serious reason

to

question

the

linguistic metaphor.

While

parenthetical

remarks

in

language may

be

complete

statements,

they

are

rarely

both com-

plete

statements

and statements that

continue the exact flow of

thought pre-

ceding

the

parenthesis

(see

Figure

2)

. Here the

parenthetical

statement

could

stand

on its

own,

but it also

continues,

with

syntactic

correctness,

the

flow of

thought

before the

parenthesis.

There is a sense of

ambiguity

in

this

example

that

we value

in music but that

we find awkward

n

language.

Undeniably, it is the verynature of the 4 sonority that providesfor this

rich

ambiguity

n

music,

because

many

of

its functions

rely upon conceiving

of

it as a second-inversion

triad

arguably

he

most flexible and least understood

of all triadic

positions.

In

Example

6,

Schenker himself

implies

that the

open-

ing

4

is dissonant

on the

global

level,

while

being

a consonant tonic within

the cadenza

proper.

But what

of

the

many

cadenzas

in

which the

bass,

and

to add

his or her

own,

suggesting

that

this was the result of

a crisis

in Beethoven's

compositional

style

between

"impro-

visatory

freedom

and

greater

compositional

control"

(181).

See also Mies 1970 on this topic.






222

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

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Example

5.

The elaborated

I

chord,

(a)

Cadenza

to Beethoven's Piano Sonata

in

C

major, op.

2/3,

mm. 232-34.

(b)

"Mi

radì/

from Mozart's Don

Giovanni,

mm. 54-59






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The

Cadenza as

Parenthesis

223

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224

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC

THEORY

The

Wagner

tuba

is

the instrument (that

may

be

disagreeable

to

some listeners) that fills out the tonal

palette

of late-nineteenth-

century brass sections.

Cf.

The

Wagner

tuba is the instrument that

fills

out the tonal

palette

of

late-nineteenth-century

brass sections. That

may

be

disagreeable

to

some listeners.

The thats in

the first sentence are

a

stand-in

for

the

V4

that serves both as a

lead-in to the cadenza and

part

of the orchestra's

V4-3

formula.

In

the

second,

the thats serve as lead-ins to two

dependent

clauses.

Figure

2.

Linguistic

parentheticals

that mimic cadenzas

therefore the

harmony,

explicitly

changes

between the fermata

4

and the con-

cluding

V-I

gesture? Many

of Mozart'sown cadenzas to

his

piano

concertos,

for

instance,

include

bVI,V/V, V7,

and

I,

among

other

harmonies,

between

the

fermata

%

and the final V-I cadence. While the

cadenza's

origins

as

an

elabo-

rated melodic second scale

degree

argue,

at

least

historically,

hat

these inter-

vening

harmonies are decorative

in

nature,

we must ask

ourselves whether

it

is the fermata

4

chord,

the V

chord,

or

something

else that is

actually being

prolonged

in

these extended cadenzas.19

That

is,

if

we are to continue

using

the

parenthetical

metaphor

for the

cadenza,

we

must reconcile our

concepts

of prolongation and insertion.

The

concept

of

prolongation

has

enjoyed

detailed

and,

at

times,

con-

tentious treatment

in

the music

theory

literature over the

past

half

century.20

While a review of that

literature

lies outside

the

scope

of

this

article,

most

scholars

agree

that it is

impossible

to

prolong

a dissonance

in

the context

of

functionally

tonal music.21And therein lies our

difficulty

with

prolonging

the

cadenza's

opening

%

Rhetorically,

he

stereotypical

cadenza

opening

is

set

up

as

a dissonant

cadential

%

a

hearing supported by

the

predominant

chords

that

usually

precede

it.

Moreover,

rhetoric would have us hear the

upper

voices

of the

4

resolving

at the end of the

cadenza.

Many

cadenzas' tonal

structures,

however,

tell a

different

story.

The

opening

4,

for

instance,

often resolves to

root-position

dominant, and then to tonic within the cadenza itself. The

open-

19

Badura-Skoda, Drabkin,

and

Jones 2001

(783)

traces the

growth

of the

cadenza back to the

vocal tradition of orna-

menting

the

penultimate

note of an

ending

(as

early

as the

thirteenth

century).

Whitmore 1991

(6)

qualifies

Johann Joa-

chim

Quantz's

statement that cadenzas

occur on the

"pen-

ultimate note of

the bass." While

this is true

in

much

cham-

ber and

solo

piano

music,

in

concertos it

usually

occurs on

the

penultimate

note of

the solo section

(followed

by

a ritor-

nello).

Rothstein 1989

(67)

marks the cadenza

as an extreme

example of Riemann's "Stillstand auf der Penultima."

20 For an introduction to this

topic,

see Kielian-Gilbert

003,

Larson

1997,

Straus

1987,

and

Morgan

1976.

21 V7

may

be an

exception

to the

prohibition against pro-

longing

dissonances

(see

Clark

1982).

If

so,

we

understand

the seventh of

V7

as an

essential dissonance

in

Kinberger's

sense,

in

distinction to the

upper

voices of

Vf,

which are

nonessential

dissonances.







~

The Cadenza as

Parenthesis

225

ing

of

Mozart's

cadenza to the first movement of his Piano Concerto in

Bk

major,

K.

450,

follows

ust

such a

progression

in

its first five bars.22

Alternately,

the opening 4 can be reinterpreted by the cadenza, belying its preparationas

a

V4.23

The cadenza

from Beethoven's C-minor

piano

concerto,

for

example,

reinterprets

the

opening

4

of the cadenza as a

passing

%

expanding

the Gr+6

chord.24

Even when the "true" arrives

n m.

420,

it turns out to serve a

tonic

function,

arpeggiating

through

I.25

Likewise,

the

closing

dominant

may

be

subverted

in a number of

ways.

Example

7,

from Mozart'sunfinished Concert

Rondo for Horn and Orchestra

in

Eb

major,

K.

371,

demonstrates the

stereotypicalconcluding

trill on

2

resolv-

ing deceptively.26

etween

the two fermatas

n

the

score,

the soloist inserts the

cadenza material.

The

expected

tonic after the second

fermata, however,

is

replacedwith a diminished-seventhchord that serves to prolong the dominant,

harmonizing

one of the

ascending

passing

tones in the horn line from concert

C to Eb

(bracketed

in the

example).

This

rising

third

from

2

to

4

parallels

the

many

rising

thirds

inherent

to the main rondo

theme

(of

which the bracketed

Î to 3 is

just

one

-

the

one to which

the horn's

2

and

4

resolve).

By prolonging

the

cadenza's

final dominant

in this

fashion,

Mozart enables the orchestra to

enter before

the tonic

harmony

(at

Allegro)

s

achieved,

while

simultaneously

working

in a melodic

parallelism

to

the

movement's main theme.27

These

examples point

to

an

unsettlingjuxtaposition,

a harmonic

sleight-

of-hand,

in which the

4-to-3

motion

is

rhetorically

understood

to exist at a tonal

level

deeper

than the

cadenza

that elaborates

it,

but

in which the

framing

sonorities

connect

syntactically

across the boundaries

of the orchestral ritor-

nello and the

cadenza,

in effect

blurring

the

edges

of

our

supposed parenthet-

ical insertion.28

This

may explain

why

even some

of

the

best work on

4

chords

22 Mozart's cadenza

to

K. 413 also resolves the

J

to a root-

position

tonic

immediately.

23 Beach 1990b

presents good

examples

of

chords that

initially

strike the

ear as

being

cadential

fs

but,

after

further

examination,

actually

function as

passing

or

arpeggiated

fs.

24 I thank William Rothstein for pointing me toward this

example.

An

alternate

reading might

hear the

chords above

the Abs

and

Fis

in the bass as

expanding

the dominant

by

neighbor

motion.

I

hear the Gr+6 hord

in

bar

412

as a

hyper-

metric

downbeat,

as is the

V chord

in

bar

416.

Thus,

it does

not

feel like the

V

really

arrives

until bar 416.

This arrival s

then

undercut

by

the

opening

of the cadenza.

25 Swain

1988

(57-58)

generalizes

that while Mozart's

cadenzas

tend to

prolong

the cadential

%

nd remain struc-

turally

parenthetical,

Beethoven's

often

prolong

the tonic

and take

part

in

the

movement's tonal

structure. Even

the

simple

Vf-

|-

I tonal

plan

in

the

obligatory

"cadenza"

in

the

first

movement of

Beethoven's

"Emperor"

Concerto

argues

for its structuralimportance in that the opening %esolves in

the solo

part

only.

For other

examples

that convert

the

open-

ing

\

chord to

a

root-position

tonic,

see Mozart's cadenzas to

K.

415,

I,

and

K.

595,

I.

26

See

also Mozart's cadenza to

K.

414,

III.

27 Mozart's

example

here is but

one of

many

similar

pas-

sages in the literature that features the orchestra's entrance

before the cadenza's

V-l

harmonic formula is

complete.

Whitmore 1991

cites

representative examples

from the first

movement

of Beethoven's

piano

concertos

in C

minor and G

major.

See also Beethoven's cadenza

for

his Piano

Concerto

in Bb

major,

I,

in

which the

\

does not resolve

at the

end.

28 This has confused numerous writers on the

topic

of the

cadenza's tonal structure.

See,

for

instance,

Mary

Robbins

(1992),

who

hedges

her

bets,

noting

the cadenza's "dual

role

of

emphasizing

tonic and

sustaining

the tension of the

Vf"

(24),

and

argues

that

"Vs" within the cadenza

do not

resolve the orchestra's

Vf

although

the orchestra's

V

can

resolve the

piano's

Vf

(40).






226

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

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Example

7.

Cadenza with

deformed

ending:

Mozart's

Concert Rondo

for Horn and Orchestra

in

El>

major,

K.

371

(orchestration

left

incomplete

at

the time of

Mozart's

death)







~


227

remains inconclusive.

In a series of articles

published

in

this

journal,

David

Beach

first stated

(1967,

23-24)

that the cadential

%

an be

prolonged

(as

in a

concerto cadenza) 29Later,however,he preferredthe term "extension"rather

than

"prolongation"

nd

suggested

that dissonant

melodic notes in a cadential

4

cannot be

prolonged

by

consonances

(1990a, 98)

.30EdwardAldwell and Carl

Schachter

make similar statements

in

their

harmony

textbook

(2003).

Under

headings

titled

"Expanding

the Cadential

4"

and

"Interpolations

between the

%

and Its

Resolution,"

they

remark that

the

%

an be

"expanded"

(when

the bass

arpeggiates

through

the

chord,

e.g.)

or that the bass

(not

the

upper

voices)

can be

prolonged

(315-20)

.31

They

also describe

the

entirety

of the cadenza

as an

expansion

of the

V4

.

There

is no

question

that without

the

intervening

solo

material,

the

V4 -3 of the cadenza would function harmonicallyike any other cadential 4 .

But

omitting

the

solo material

from between

the

V4

and

V3

would

be unthink-

able

in

performance

because,

rhetorically,

he

setup

of the

fermata

%

emands

something

more. Once

the cadenza

begins,

it becomes

part

of the

tonal struc-

ture

of the

movement.

We could

hardly

call it

a

separate

Satz

it

is

dependent

upon

the

music

surrounding

it for its existence.

And,

for that reason

(though

it

might

be

convenient)

,

it is

hopelessly

naive to

consider the cadenza

a blank

check,

a

gap

to

be filled

with

anything

under the

unconditional

guarantee

that

the orchestra's

V4

will be

prolonged

until

the V at the cadenza's

conclu-

sion.

While

we can

certainly

point

to

examples

in

which the

V4

is extended

in time

(without any change

of

harmony)

or

in

which

another

harmony

is

interpolated

between

V4

and its

resolution to

V3

such

examples

ultimately

prolong

the

root-position

dominant,

not the cadential

4.

The

upper

voices of

the

4

chord

are,

after

all,

dissonant,

which is

why analysts

attach the Roman

numeral

V,

rather than

I,

to this

chord. But

time and

again,

we are

presented

with cadenzas

in which

the

V4

clearly

resolves

to

V3

and

I

within

the

cadenza;

cadenzas

in which stable

thematic

presentations,

complete

harmonic

progres-

sions,

and

even

miniature

formal

types

appear;

and

cadenzas that

are

longer

than

many

stand-alone

binary pieces.

And therein

lies

our dilemma. We are

29 Others have agreed with him. See Swain 1988 (36-44),

which

lists the

techniques

Mozart uses

for

"prolonging"

Vj

and

states

that the

rarity

of the

principal

theme at

the

opening

of

the cadenza

is due to

its association

with tonic sta-

bility

(40);

Friedman

1989,

which

says

that all of Beethoven's

cadenzas

(except

for

op.

19)

"prolong

the

cadential six-four"

(273)

but

avoid

strong

tonics

or dominants

until the

end;

and Drabkin

1996

(165),

which states

that the

cadenza com-

poses

out,

or

prolongs,

the

Vj

progression.

30

Beach here

refers

to the

4

chord as

being

"extended"

(rather

than

"prolonged")

and admits

that it can

have

"pre-

liminary

resolutions."

In

a

personal

communication

with the

author,

Beach confided

that at

the time of his 1967

article he

had not thought through the semantic differences between

"extension" and "prolongation" and that today he would

agree

that the

Vj

cannot

be

prolonged

as

a

harmony

due to

the dissonance

of the

upper

voices.

31

In

their

example

from Brahms's German

Requiem,

Aldwell

and Schachter

(317)

make no mention of

the

upper

voices.

Rather than

arguing

that the bass of the chord is

prolonged through

double

neighbor

motion

(C-D-Bb-C),

it

might

make more

sense to treat the first

4

chord as

arising

from a bass

neighboring

(D-C-D)

or,

even

better,

passing

(D-C-Bb)

motion,

thus

achieving

the

dominant

(Vt-§

)

only

upon

the final C

(m. 161).

Compare

Beach 1990b

(284-85),

which cites an

example

in

which a

J's

top

note

(dissonance)

cannot be

"prolonged" by

a

consonance.






228

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

torn

because convention

and rhetoric tell us that this music "doesn't

matter,"

that

it

is

not

trulypart

of the

movement

proper,

and

yet

we hear t

as

part

of the

movement proper. This is preciselywhat is so disturbing about the cadenza,

for if we

admit to its

legitimacy,

we must

also admit that the

performer

s

entrusted,

in

part,

with the tonal

structure

of

the movement

Given

this

apparent

conflict in

evidence,

it is not

surprising

that a

survey

of the

scholarly

literature on

cadenzas turns

up unequivocal

statements that

the cadenza both is and is not a

component

of tonal structure.32

Thus,

any

responsible

cadenza

analysis

should address both the tonal

structure of the

cadenza

proper

and its interaction with the

tonal

structure of the movement

in

which

it

appears.

For the

former,

the

approach

taken

in

this

study

will

be Schenkerian

graphic analysis.

While Schenkerian

analysis,

ike all

analytic

methods, has its weaknesses,no other method for illustratingthe interaction

of

harmony

and

counterpoint

in

functional

tonality

suggests

itself

in this con-

text.

Elements left unarticulated

by

Schenkerian

analysis

(e.g.,

thematic

con-

tent or formal

function)

I

take

up

in

the next section

of this article.

To illustrate

my analytic

model

for the

second

consideration the

inter-

action

of

the cadenza with the tonal structure of the movement

proper

let

us turn to three

brief

analyses.

The

first,

Example

8,

presents

an

analysis

of

Mozart's cadenza to the first movement of his Piano Concerto

in

Bl?

major,

K.

450. The

top portion

is a Schenkerian

graphic analysis

that illustrates

how

the

dominant

Stufe

s

prolonged throughout

the cadenza.33The bottom

por-

tion

is a

simplistic

overview of

the cadenza. The

opening

and

closing

har-

monies of

the cadenza are marked in brackets.

Between these

two

framing

sonorities,

a slur

indicates the

prolongation

of one

Stufe,

the dominant.

Finally,

the

significant

tonic

Stufe

rom our Schenkerian

analysis

s

appended

above and between the

brackets to show how the

cadenza's

prolongation

is

elaborated

in

this

case,

a tonic

harmony

functions

as an insertion between

the

cadential

%

nd the dominant seventh.

This

analytic

overview is

typical

of

32

Robbins 1992

(72)

states that the

symmetry

of the con-

certo

movement

is

dependent

harmonically

and

proportion-

ally on the cadenza; Swain 1988 (58) asserts that cadenzas

by

Mozart and

Beethoven,

although

written after the

works

they

are

intended

for,

are

constructed with these

specific

works'

structure

in

mind;

and

Matthews 1978

(725-26)

says

the

cadenza is a

structural

necessity.

On the

other

hand,

Drabkin

1996

(164)

states

that Mozart's

cadenzas' tonal

structures are

independent

of the

movements

in

which

they appear.

33 There

are at

least two viable

alternatives to the

analytic

reading presented

here. The

first,

assuming

that the root-

position

tonic chords

throughout

the

analysis

are still mani-

festations of

the cadential

\,

requires

hearing

an

imagined

pedal

dominant

below the bass

throughout

the cadenza.

Certainly, imagining such a tone is a reasonable analytic

point

of

departure,

although

one

might

argue

that

our

ability

to

continually

hear tonic arrivalsas unstable

\

chords attenu-

ates the

longer

the

cadenza

persists

and the more

forcefully

these tonic arrivals are articulated. In this cadenza, Ibelieve

the

repeated

tonic

arrivals,

the low

register

of the tonic

root,

and the

length

of the

cadenza overbalance the

conceptual

dominant

pedal.

Note

that

I

is still subservient to

V, however,

as an

interpolation

the dominant

pedal analysis

is

not nec-

essary

to

assert the

prolongation

of

V.

A

second

possibility

is

hearing

a

prolongation

of

V7

(from

the second

sonority

of

the

analysis

to the final

sonority).

While the

prolongation

of

V

is not

in

question,

the

timing

of

the

resolution of the

t's

upper

voices is

open

to

question.

Because of the

persistence

of melodic

3,

I

read the first

V7

here as a

more surface-level lead-in to

the

prolonged

tonic,

just

as the

predominant

sonorities at the end are more

surface-level

connective tissue back to V.






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The

Cadenza as

Parenthesis

229

Bk

V^~7

I

I V7

(Vj

^V7)

Example

8. Tonal

analysis

of Mozart's cadenza to his Piano

Concerto

in

Bb

major,

K.

450,

1

cadenzas whose

content can be understood as

tonally

parenthetical

and

whose

boundary

harmonies

present

no real

problems.

Other

possibilities

abound,

of

course,

requiring

some additions to the

analytic

model.

As we sawearlier

in the cadenza to Mozart'sConcert Rondo for

Horn and

Orchestra

n

Eb

major,

K. 371

(Example

7)

,

the exact

boundary

of the

cadenza

may

be

difficult to discern.

Example

9

presents

a

transcription

of hornist

Anthony

Halstead's cadenza

to this movement and

the

slur-and-bracket-type

analytic

overview.

(Due

to the

brevity

and

simplicity

of the

cadenza,

a

Schen-

kerian

analysis

s

hardly necessary.) Again,

the

cadenza

is

clearly

parenthetical

to the

movement's

tonal structure and serves to

prolong

the

dominant with

alternating

4-3

upper

voices above an assumed

pedal

5. But the

curly

brackets

above

the orchestral

series of harmonies that follow the second fermata

in

Example

9 indicate

that there is a

range

of

possibilities

for the

ending

bound-

ary point

of the cadenza

the

disjunction

between harmonic resolution and

orchestral

reentry

leave some doubt

in

our minds

as to

when,

precisely,

we exit

cadenza

space

and return

to the movement

proper.

Another

possibility

arises when the cadenza articulates a

progression

or

prolongation

other

than the standard

V4-3.

The

slur

may

still be

used to

show

harmonic

prolongation,

but

in

cases

of

progression

from one

harmony

to

another,

we

draw an arrow between

the

boundary

sonorities to show the

change of Stufen.Moreover,the function of one of the boundary sonorities

may

be

called into

question.

To model this functional

ambiguity,

he

boundary

(vj

v7

Example 9. Anthony Halstead's cadenza to Mozart's Concert Rondo for Horn and Orchestra

in

Eb

major,

K.

371,

and

analytic

overview






230

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

(a)

Ü6

V7

g

(IV

IV6;

(b)

ii6

V7

6

IV6

N

(

™

*

__v7,1

Example

10.

Two

analyses

of

the cadenza to Schumann's

Fantasy

for Violin

and Orchestra

in

C

major

bracket is drawnwith dashed lines.

The written-outcadenza from

Schumann's

Fantasy

or Violin and Orchestra

in C

major

illustratesboth

of

these

notations.

While Schumann's cadenza

clearly opens

on an IV

chord,

its

ending

is

open

to

interpretation.

The soloist's final

sonority

is an

arpeggiated

IV6

chord,

a

harmony

whose tones are sounded

by

the

return of the orchestra

as

well,

with

one

exception:

the G

(5)

in the bass instruments. Two

analytic possibilities

suggest

themselves.

First,

we

might

understand the cadenza

to be a

prolonga-

tion

of

the subdominant

harmony,

as illustrated

by Example

10a.

Here,

the

intervening dominant resolves deceptively to IV6and ultimately serves as a

harmonized bass

passing

tone between

4

and 6. The

pedal

dominant

in the

orchestra's

reentry

can be understood as a

precursor

to the

ensuing harmony.

Alternately,

we

might

assume that it is the dominant that is

in

effect

upon

the

orchestra's

reentrance,

in

which case the soloist's IV6at the end of the cadenza

serves as a harmonized bass

passing

tone between

f

and

5,

serving

to

prolong

the

dominant

(Example

10b).

In both

examples,

the final bracket is dashed

to

indicate that there is some

doubt about the function of the final

sonority.

The

brackets,

slurs,

and

arrows

analytic

overviews n the

examples

above

are

designed

to

accompany

a Schenkerian

analysis

of the cadenza and to

model

cadenzas that can

be considered

parenthetical

to their movements'

tonal structures. But

many

written-out cadenzas are

clearly integral

to their

movements' local tonal

structure. As

such,

they

should be

simply

included

within

a Schenkerian

analysis

of the

movement. But these cadenzas

give

us

pause

to consider their

function on a

global

evel: If

a cadenza is

integral

to its

movement's tonal

structure,

does

it follow that it is

integral

to the movement's

form as

well?

The

cadenza as formal

parenthesis

Thus

far,

I have

addressed

only

the

cadenza's

local,

harmonic

function,

but the

cadenza also operates on a global, formal level. Historically, his formal func-

tion

has been to

highlight

salient

cadences;

in

fact,

modern

English

is the

only






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The Cadenza as

Parenthesis 231

Western

language

to

distinguish

between the words "cadence"and "cadenza"

(Badura-Skoda,

Drabkin,

and

Jones

2001,

783).

By

the

mid-eighteenth-century

we find composers such asJ. C. Bach and Haydn using the cadenza to mark

the cadence

at the end

of the solo

recapitulation

in

their concertos.

In later

classic-era

examples,

the cadenza

still marks the

moment of tonal

closure,

but

also

serves to divide

the final

orchestral ritornello.34

n most of these

works,

the cadenza

appears

in the score

as a mere

fermata;

the actual content

is

left

up

to the

performer.

After

Beethoven,

though, composers

tended

either

to write their

cadenzas

into the score

or to

dispense

with

them

altogether.35

These

romantic-era

cadenzas

were not

limited to the ends of

concerto move-

ments

but could

appear

in almost

any

musical

form and could take

on a vari-

ety

of

formal

functions,

from

exposing

themes to

concluding

the

develop-

ment, to providing coda-like opportunities to clarifyor resolve elements of

the

concerto

movement

proper.

By

the end

of the nineteenth

century,

we

find

pieces

like Strauss

s Till

Eulenspiegel

ntroducing

their

principal

themes within

a "cadenza."

Clearly,

his

linguistic

metaphor

has been stretched

to the break-

ing

point;

introducing

a central

thought

within a

parenthetical

insertion is a

gesture

almost unthinkable

in a work

of

prose.

Thus,

the formal

function of

the

cadenza,

like the

tonal function

of the

%

hord,

proves

flexible,

explaining

why

scholars

seem

undecided

as to

whether the

cadenza is a

component

of

form or

merely

a formal

interruption.36

Over its

history,

three

developing

aspects

of the

cadenza

parallel

its

changing

formal

function.

The

first is thematic.

Early

cadenzas,

like the

one

in

Example

5a,

were

little more

than melodic

decoration,

adopted

to

elabo-

rate a

structural

cadence

and/or

provide

a brief

moment to

display

the vir-

tuosity

of the

soloist

(s).

In

such

instances,

the

content

comprised

the usual

scales,

arpeggios,

and

surface-level

melodic

elaborations

native to

passage

work.

Upon

reaching

the

high

classic

era,

however,

we

find that

many

of the

cadenzas

Mozart

wrote

for his own

concertos

after

1779 contain statements

of

themes

from the

movement

proper,

woven

into the virtuosic

display.37

or the

34

Caplin

1998

(243

and

251)

states

that classic-era

caden-

zas interruptthe final orchestral ritornello, separating it into

two

parts.

See also Green

1975

(242).

35 Of

course,

there

are some

notable

exceptions.

Brahms's

violin

concerto,

for

example,

contains

space

for an

impro-

vised

cadenza,

probably

as a

gesture

of reconciliation

to

his

longtime

friend,

the

violinist

Joseph

Joachim,

who

pre-

miered

the

work.

36 Badura-Skoda

1962

argues

for the formal

necessity

of the

cadenza

by

stating

that

the "classical

concerto

form would

be

upset

by

the omission

of cadenzas"

(215). Badura-Skoda,

Drabkin,

and Jones

2001

(783)

also

assert that cadenzas

written

out

by

the

performer

are often an

important

struc-

turalcomponent of the movement. On the other hand, Roth-

stein 1989 hears

the cadenza

as "the extreme

example,

in

tonal music, of an interpolationthat delays the continuation

of a

fixed

structure;

the

formal

design

and

(often)

the metri-

cal

pattern

are forced

to wait"

(42-43).

37

Badura-Skoda,

Drabkin,

and

Jones 2001

(787-88)

notes

that

Bach,

his

sons,

Haydn,

and Mozart all

composed

non-

thematic

cadenzas. Mozart's

really

start

being

thematic

in

nature

only

after

1779.

Despite

this,

Levin 1975

(11-12)

claims that thematic

content

in Mozart's cadenzas is irrel-

evant,

whereas Melkus

1991

(84-91)

goes

so far

as

to

sug-

gest

that Mozart's

piano

cadenzas

can be transcribed to

serve

as violin cadenzas as

long

as one

simply

replaces

the

piano

concerto themes

with violin concerto themes.






232

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC

THEORY

most

part,

hese

are

moderately eveloped

reminiscences,

ut their

presence

confirms

subtle,

yet profound, hange

n

the

cadenza: twas

becomingpiece

specific.Whereashematicallyoid elaborationsould be arguably ismissed

from formal

considerations,

he

appearance

f themes

unique

to the move-

ment at hand

suggests

a more intimate onnection

between he cadenzaand

the music

surrounding

t.

Second,

with

increasingappearances

f themes

in

the

cadenzacame

increasingdevelopments

of those themes. While

Mozart

restricted

himself

both

melodically

nd

harmonically

n

this

regard,38

eethoven

endedtoward

bona fide

development

n his

cadenzas;39

n

fact,

one

mightsay

that

t is with

Beethoven hat the cadenzaand coda form functions

begin

to fuse

together

(Whitmore

991,

188-93).

40

Thematic

developments

n the cadenzas

f later

concertos, uchas Schumann's ianoconcerto,achieveda measure f impor-

tancesuch thatone could not

imagine imply

deleting

them and

retaining

n

unaltered ense of form.

Third,

increased thematic

presentation

and

development

in turn

demanded

greater

harmonic content within the

cadenza,

leading

to

the

extended

prolongations

f dominant

or tonic

Stufen

lready

discussed

and

vitiating

he

tonal

importance

f the

opening

4

chord.

In

turn,

the

length

of

the cadenza

grew

until

it

began

to

take

on formalcharacteristics

f its own.

Mozart's adenzas end toward

a

tripartite rganization

n which thematic

reminiscence ccurs

mainly

n

the tonic

key.

The cadenzas

f

Beethoven

and

later

composers xplode

these

tidy

confines and take

on

the characteristics

of free

fantasy,

ometimes

rivaling

he

development

ection tself n termsof

scope

and

ength.

These

developments

in

the

cadenza, however,

posed

a

danger

to

romantic-era

omposers.

Left to the whimsof

performers, ruly

developmen-

tal cadenzashad the

potential

o

significantly

eshape

he form of the move-

ment

proper.

Thus,

the formal

developments

of the

cadenza

throughout

historyengage

a

chicken-and-egg

elationship

with

compositional

ontrol.

As

the cadenza's

ormaland tonal

functions

ncreasingly

ame to affect the

understanding

f the entire

movement,

omposers

xerted more and more

control over the

content of the

cadenza.

Likewise,

ncreased

compositional

investment ieldedgreaterreturnsn the cadenza'sormal alience.

38

Fetsch 1991

(13)

states that

most Mozart

cadenzas

pre-

sent one or

more themes and

immediately

alter and

develop

them,

although

the

brevity

of this

development

and

the sta-

bility

of the tonic

key

suggest

that Mozart

did not intend

them

to reach the

level of his

development

sections

proper.

A

summary

of

the harmonic

tendencies

in

Mozart's caden-

zas

(themes

in

tonic,

use of

tonic,

parallel

minor, bVI,

and

circle-of-fifths

harmonies as

tonicized

key

areas,

but

rarely

any

others)

appears

in

Schrade

1995

(59-63).

39

Golovatchoff 1974

(16)

contrasts Mozart's

thematic

reminiscence to

Beethoven's thematic

development

in

their

piano

cadenzas. Swain 1988

(57-58)

states that Mozart

cadenzas

prolong

V

and

simply

embellish

a cadence and

therefore do not

require

a

separate

formal

section,

while

Beethoven's

long

cadenzas

prolong

I,

allowing

for modula-

tion,

and

require

a

separate

formal section.

40

The cadenza to the

first movement of

Beethoven's Piano

Concerto in C minor is a good example.






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The Cadenza as

Parenthesis

233

Most

problematic,

then,

are the late classic-eraand

early

romantic-era

concertos,

because

they

stand

near

the

end of the tradition in

which the

cadenza was left up to the performer. Perhaps the reason we care so deeply

about the cadenzas modern

performers

choose for this

repertoire

is not due

simply

to

stylistic

considerations but rather is because we fear

that cadenzas

penned

by

the

inept

will somehow

impoverish

the

works

in

which we hear

them.

If

true,

this statement marks not

only

the

decreasing appropriateness

of the

parenthetical

metaphor

to the

cadenza,

but also

points

to an artistic

dilemma most obvious

in the concerto.

Concertos

containing performers'

cadenzas,

more than

any

other tradition

in

common-practice

music,

engage

the tensions

inherent

in

our

(essentially, nineteenth-century) understanding

of art as

personal

expression.

The

interpretive layer

added

by

the

performer

is heightened because someone other than the composer has the power to

determine

a

significant

number of the notes we hear in the

piece.41

Like

Schoenberg's

orchestrations

of Bach or

Stravinsky's

Pulcinella,

these works

lead us

to ask:Whose

piece

is it

anyway?

The best cadenzas

rise to this artistic

challenge. Many

not

only

embrace

compositional

unity, comprising

the

expected

motivic

and

sequential pas-

sage

work and thematic

presentations,

but also make

explicit

the

secondary

nature

of their artistic

voice

by recomposing

various

passages

from the

move-

ment

proper.

In such

cases,

the

parenthetical

nature of the cadenza could

more

appropriately

be likened unto a bracketed editorial

remark,

a reaction

to,

or

analysis

of,

the concerto

movement in music rather than

in

prose.42

Many

such

cadenzas arose

naturally

out of

nineteenth-century

reactions

to

eighteenth-century

concertos.

While these

cadenzas,

when

played

in the con-

text of

eighteenth-century

music,

strike

us

today

as

grotesque

in

their

pro-

portions

and

stylistic

disjunctions,

the

glorification

of the virtuoso

performer

was central

to the

performance

practice

of

the

romantic

era

(Isaacs

1986,

39-41

)43

late-eighteenth-

and

nineteenth-century

audiences

(not

unlike

today's

azz

audiences)

customarily applauded

the soloist after the cadenza

rather than after

the movement's

conclusion

(Hailparn

1981,

51).

In

fact,

the

41 Nattiez 1990 (69-90) addresses this question of the per-

former's role

in

relationship

to the

composer's

in

discussing

the

concept

of the musical

work.

42 Drabkin

1996: The

cadenza,

"instead of

attempting

to

redefine the role between

soloist and

orchestra,

rewrites

the

end of the

recapitulation

from the soloist's

point

of

view"

(177);

Drabkin 1996

(164)

also mentions

hearing only

one

passage

in

Mozart's cadenzas

that constitutes an

analy-

sis

of the

work,

bars

21-23 of

K.

488, I,

which

telescope

the motive

of bar 5ff.

Kramer 1991

(118-21)

states

that

the

cadenza

brings

the

performer

and

composer

into

rap-

prochement,

offering

the

opportunity

to rewrite or redefine

the

piece

even

if

the

performer

of the cadenza is also the

composer of the piece.

43 In fact, this trend toward the cadenza as individual

expression

seems to have

begun

in

the late

eighteenth

cen-

tury. Grayson

1998

(102)

states that Mozart did

everything

possible

to

prevent

others from

playing

his cadenzas

-

they

were,

to

him,

an

aspect

of

performance,

not

of

precompo-

sition;

consequently,

others were

expected

to

play

their

own cadenzas. Whitmore 1991

(58-59)

states that the vir-

tuoso concerto led to the decline of the cadenza because

there was no need to showcase

virtuosity

there due to the

abundance of virtuoso

passages throughout

the

concerto

proper.

Gauldin 2004 links

the

disappearance

of the cadenza

to the

emergence

of the

apotheosis

in

nineteenth-century

concertos.






234

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

very stylistic disjunction

between cadenza and concerto

helped

to

make the

work's

second artistic voice the

performer's

voice more obvious.44

Today's

performers typicallywalk a middle line in their cadenzas between including

some

aspect

of

personal

reaction and

remaining

within

the

style

of the

move-

ment

proper,

an ideal summarized

by

John

Mueter:

[The cadenza]

s meant to be a

personal

commentary, eworking

he themes

presented

n

the movement nd

possibly

ven

containing

ome additional

new

material.The cadenza hould

always

e

in

keeping

with the

general

character

of the concertomovement tself.

It is

not,

as is

commonly upposed,

merely

a

vehicle or the soloistto flaunt

his

dazzling echnique;

nor is it meantto

be a

potpourri

of the themes of the

movement,

r a second

development

ection.

Likewise,

cadenza

which s

exceedingly

ong

tends o drawundue

attention o

itself.Mostcadenzaswritten or Mozart oncerti n the nineteenthcentury an

be found to be

objectionable

n one or all

of

these

grounds

not to

mention

the faultof

stylistic mpropriety.

1982,29)45

But our

contemporary

devotion

to the Urtextand to

correct

performance

practice

our distress

at

hearing,

say,

Beethoven

and Glenn Gould

together

in

some sort of

unholy

union

-

should not blind

us to the musical

insights

and

sense of wit these cadenzas

offer.

Skillfullycomposed

cadenzas

by

performer/

composers exploit

the tensions

between local and

global

functions,

blurring

the

tonal-rhetorical boundaries with the movement

proper

and

initiating

subtle

rehearings

of the music outside

cadenza

space.

Because the "performancepractice"movement of the twentiethcentury

did

not

influence

composer-performers

of the romantic

era,

their cadenzas

often strikeus

today

as

bloated,

stylisticallynappropriate,

and/or

idiosyncratic.

But

many

of

the nineteenth

century's

best-known

composer/ performers

Beethoven,

Clara

Schumann, Fauré, Gounod, Saint-Saëns,

and Brahms

penned

cadenzas to

eighteenth-century

concertos that

give

us

intriguing

insights

into how these musicians reacted to the music of their

predecessors.

Some even

imply

a sort of

recomposition

based

on

anxiety

of

influence,

not

unlike the

twentieth-century

xamples

cited

byJoseph

Straus

(1990).

Take,

for

instance,

Mozart'sPiano Concerto in C

minor,

K. 491.

Since

no

cadenzas

by

Mozart survive for

this concerto

(and

perhaps

due

to this

work's

romantic

sensibility)

nineteenth-century performers composed

a wealth of cadenzas

for it.46 f

we

attempt

to listen to the C-minor concerto

with "nineteenth-cen-

tury

ears,"

we

might

be

drawn to certain

chromatic details of the

opening

44

Grayson

1998

(93)

suggests

that

stylistically

contrast-

ing

cadenzas

accentuate the

cadenza's

extrastructural

role,

while

stylistically

appropriate

cadenzas have an

opposite

effect. See also

the

comments on

Beethoven's cadenza for

Mozart's

D-minor

concerto

in

Kramer

1991

(127).

45 Mueter does

later

(1982,

30)

admit that romantic com-

posers

were

writing

cadenzas

informed

by

a different aes-

thetic than the

one

in

force either

today

or

during

the

eigh-

teenth

century.

46 The same can

be said of Mozart's D-minor

concerto,

K.

466.






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~

The

Cadenza as

Parenthesis

235

theme that remain

largely

unexplored by

Mozart,

including:

the

substitution

of bVI or

I,

the

incipient

diminished-seventh chord

[C-Et-Fl-(A)],

and

the

chromatic double neighbor about 5. Additionally,the appearanceof the prin-

cipal

theme

in

Et

minor later in

the

exposition might

suggest

the

beginning

of

an

equal

division

of

the octave C-Et-Gt-BH? a

large-scale

composing-

out of the

minor

thirds native

to

the

theme itself.

While Mozartnever

presents

the

theme

in

either

Gt

(Fl)

or

BW?

A)

minor, Brahms, Fauré,

and Gounod all

use at least one of these

keys

within their cadenzas for this movement. More-

over,

these romantic

composers'

cadenzas revel

in

both surface-leveland

mid-

dleground

chromatic

neighbors

(see

the

B-major

section

in

Fauré's cadenza

and

the

Dk-major

ection

in

Gounod's,

e.g.),

chromatic

5-6

shifts,

and

aug-

mented

triads

gestures

that

evoke a

sonic milieu

largely

unavailable to a

musician of Mozart's ime.

In the

twentieth

century,

cadenzas

for

late-eighteenth-century

concertos

run the

gamut

from

those that

attempt

to

mimic

the

stylistic

convention of the

time

(see,

e.g.,

Alfred

Brendel's cadenza

to the first movement

of Mozart's

Piano Concerto

in D

minor,

K.

466)

to those that

open up

entirely

new

har-

monic,

textural,

and

formal

realms

within the cadenza

space

(e.g.,

Glenn

Gould's

1966 cadenzas

to

Beethoven's

Piano Concerto

in C

major).47

The

analytic upshot

of these historical

developments

is

that,

as

analysts,

we must decide

not

only

if the cadenza

is

essential to the

tonal structure

of

the

movement

in

which

it

appears,

but also whether

it is essential

to the for-

mal structure.

Cadenzas

that are

not

formally

essential

are best

left out of

any

form

diagrams

and discussions.On the other

hand,

those cadenzasintrinsic to

the

movement's

form

should

be noted

in the

form

diagram

proper

and ana-

lyzed

with

regard

to

the

formal functions

they

effect:

expository

(the

presen-

tation

of

new thematic

material),

developmental,

recapitulatory

(especially

if

that

material

is

not

properly

recapitulated

in the

movement

proper),

and/or

coda

(a

clarifying,

resolving,

or

rehearing

of

some details

from the

movement

proper)

.48

Form-functional

abbreviations

may

be

appended

to the slur-and-

brackets

analytical

overviews

of cadenzas'

tonal structures

presented

earlier

in this

article.

The relevant

themes

and their

functions

are

represented

by

the

theme

label

(s)

followed

by

the

function

in

subscript.

Thus,

P2dev

ndicates

development of the second theme from the principle tonal area. Likewise,

Pi

+

S2c«da

ndicates

the

uncovering

of a musical

connection

between the first

47 Brendel's

cadenza

contains

stereotypical

use

of

mixture,

diminished-seventh

chords,

and thematic

fragmentation.

This

cadenza

is audible

in the

Philips

Complete

Mozart

recording

of

the concerto.

See

also

Badura-Skoda

1967 and

1956

for other

stylistically

consistent

cadenzas.

Gould's

cadenza

appears

in

his

recording

of Beethoven's

C-major

concerto

with

the Columbia

Symphony

under Vladimir

Golschmann

from

the December

18, 1966,

radio broadcast.

Other interesting cadenzas by twentieth-century compos-

ers

include Stockhausen's

cadenzas

(written

mainly

for his

children)

to Mozart's

wind

concertos;

Bartok's cadenza for

Mozart's Concerto

for

Two Pianos

in Eb

major,

K.

365;

and

Busoni's

many

cadenzas to

Mozart's

piano

concertos.

48 Note that

my

more traditional use

of the term "formal

functions" differs

from the

reworking

of

this

concept

in

Caplin

1998.






236

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

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237

theme of the

principle

tonal area and the second

theme

of

the second tonal

area.49

As an illustrationof the analytic concepts and notation presented thus

far,

let

us

turn

to the third movement of Mozart's Piano

Sonata

in

Bb

major,

K.

333.

This movement is a textbook

example

of what

many

scholars refer

to

as "sonata-rondo"

orm with one

exception:

It has a cadenza. With

regards

to

analyzing

the

movement,

the cadenza

poses

two

problems:

(1)

Should its

tonal structure

be

graphed part-and-parcel

within the movement

proper?

(2)

What

role should it

play

within the

analysis

of

the

movement's

form? In

answer to

problem

1,

my

own

preference

would be to

graph

the cadenza

sepa-

rately

from the

movement

proper

since

I

hear it

clearly

as a tonal

insertion,

prolonging

the dominant

(see

Example

1

a).

In answer to

problem

2,

1

would

note the cadenza's placement within a diagramof the movement's form and

then

append

form-functional

notation to

my

overview of the cadenza's struc-

ture

(see

Examples

lib and

lie).

Although

another

analystmight

include

the music of the cadenza within

a Schenkerian

graph

of this

movement,

my

decision not to do so reflects

my

hearing

of this

cadenza as

tonally

parenthetical.50

On the other

hand,

another

analyst might

choose

not to include

the cadenza

in

a chart

of

the

movement's

form.

My

reason

for

doing

so is twofold:

First,

given

that

this is sonata-rondo

form,

the

unusual

appearance

of

a cadenza

is

significant

enough

to warrant

ts

inclusion.

And,

second,

the fact

that Mozart not

only

included

a

cadenza,

but

wrote it out

himself,

meaning

that thiscadenza

specifically

was to be

played

in

the

movement,

implies

that the

composer

conceived of it as

part

of

the move-

ment's

form.

In

terms

of its formal

function,

the cadenza does

not

play

a vital

role,

although

the extended

development

of the

T2

theme's

rising

chromati-

cism

suggests

that

Mozart felt the movement needed

more

developmental

space given

that

much of the

C section

("development")

was

devoted

to the

exposition

of new material

(the

Dj

and

D2

themes

noted on the form

chart).

Nine

cadenza

types

The

analytic

nterpretation

of

the

K. 333 cadenza above

a musical statement

that is tonally inessential and formallyunclear is but one of nine possibili-

ties.

In

terms

of both

its

local-level,

tonal function and its

global-level,

for-

mal

function,

a

cadenza

may

be

essential,

inessential,

or somewhere between

(see

Table

1

for a

summary) Ideally,

cadenza

analysis

of the

kind done

in

this

study

should

comprise

a

Schenkerian

graph

of the

cadenza,

a slur-and-

brackets

overview,

and a

form chart

(e.g., Example

11).

In this final section

49 The

method for

naming

themes

in

this article is derived

from

Hepokoski

and

Darcy

2006. The

analytic

notation

is,

however,

flexible

enough

to admit

any

methodology

for

naming themes, and even for adding other form functions.

50 I have been unable to locate

any published

Schenkerian

analysis

of this movement to see how this

question

has

been handled

by

other scholars.






238

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

Table

1. A

Tonal/Formal Cadenza-Function Matrix

FormalStructure

TonalStructure Inessential Unclear Essential

Inessential

Early

examples

as well as Formal

elucidation,

Rare.

many

others. addition or

commentary

See

Strauss,

Till

See

Beethoven,

Piano within tonal

parenthesis.

Eulenspiegels

ustige

Streiche,

Sonata in C

major, op.

2/3.

See

Beethoven,

cadenza

to

mm. 3-13.

Mozart's Piano

Concerto

no.

20

in D

minor,

I.

Unclear

No formal function but Formal

elucidation,

Important

formal

function

harmonic

boundary points

addition

or

commentary

couched

in tonal-

unclear or

ambiguous.

that somehow inflects

the

hierarchical

ambiguity

See

Schumann,

Fantasy

sense of tonal structure.

belying

rhetorical sense

of

for Violin and Orchestra. See Brahms, cadenza to parenthesis.

Mozart's Piano Concerto

See

Sibelius,

Violin

no. 17

in G

major,

I.

Concerto.

Essential

No

thematic treatment of

Formal

elucidation,

Many

19th- and

note

despite

lack

of tonal addition or

commentary

20th-century

cadenzas

parenthesis.

that

is

part

of

the

written

into the score

by

See

Rachmaninov,

Piano movement's tonal

the

composer.

Concerto no.

2

in C

minor,

structure.

See

Liszt,

Piano

Concerto

II,

mm.

122-29.

See

Schumann,

Intro-

no. 1 in El?

Major,

I.

duction

and

Allegro

for

Piano and Orchestra.

of the

article,

I

discuss each of the nine

possibilities

shown

in Table 1.

Space

prevents

me from

engaging

a

detailed cadenza

analysis

for each of the nine

possibilities,

so

for

many,

a

prose

overview

and/or

brief

musical

example

must

suffice. The

three

formally

unclear cadenza

types

below

(numbers

, 5,

and

8)

,

however,

offer

more

in

the

way

of

analytic

interest,

and

I

therefore

treat

them

to

extensive

analysis.

1.

Tonally

and

formally

nessential.

These are the

quintessential^ paren-

thetical

insertions most

common

in

early-

and

mid-eighteenth-century

music

whose tonal function comprises surface-level diminution and whose formal

function

affects little

more than the

underscoring

of

a

significant

cadence.

They

simply

elaborate one

prolonged harmony

and include no material

spe-

cific to

the

movement

in

which

they appear

(refer

again

to the cadenza to

Beethoven's

Piano Sonata in C

major,

op.

2/3,

in

Example

5a).

As

such,

they

offer

relatively

barren

ground

for

analytic

investigation

and

require

no addi-

tional

discussion.

2.

Tonally

nessential nd

ormally

unclear.

onally

nessential cadenzas that

do

contain some

thematic

material rom the

movement

proper

offer

more food

for

thought.

The

most common

examples

of this

type

of

cadenza are those

indicated in the score by the customary paired fermataV4 and V(7)chords,

but

whose content

suggests

an

elaboration

of,

clarification

of,

addition

to,

or






Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

~


239

commentary

on the form of the movement. These

cadenzas,

while not essen-

tial to the

concerto

form,

are

specific

to the concerto movement

in

question

and, when played in context, offer a valuable paratextwhose relation to the

text is

perhaps

more intimate than that of a

parenthetical

insertion. Cadenzas

penned

by

romantic-era

performers

for

Mozart'sconcertos often fall into this

category.

For an extended

illustration,

let us turn to Beethoven's cadenza for

the first

movement of Mozart's

Concerto

in D

minor,

K. 466. This cadenza

is a

rarity

within Beethoven's

compositional output.

Since he

virtually

never

engaged

in

public performances

of

pieces

written

by

other

composers,

this

cadenza

represents

a

unique opportunity

to witness Beethoven's musical reac-

tion

to Mozart.51 ince

the cadenza

is

inessential

to the concerto movement's

tonal structure,it should be graphed separately; he measure numbersfor the

graphic

analysis

n

example

1

2a

begin

with the orchestral

%

hord and end with

the V7-i

gesture

closing

the cadenza. Between

these

framing

sonorities,

the

cadenza

prolongs

the

dominant at the

deepest

level of tonal

structure,

nterpo-

lating

a iv

(m. 36)

chord between

the

opening

V4

and the resolution to V7

n m.

48,

shown both

in

the

graph

and

in

the

overview n

Example

12b.

Though

the

cadenza

is

not

overly ong,

certain features

do stand out as Beethovenian.

The

first salient

gesture,

for

instance,

is the

repetition

of the

rising

bassline motive

featured

at the

opening

of the concerto

movement.

(The

same

motivic

ges-

ture is used

to close

the

cadenza.)

Certainly,

we can understand

why

this

ges-

ture

appealed

to

Beethoven

many

of his

sonata-allegro

minor-mode works

achieve

a measure

of their

expressive

power

from the

obsessive

repetition

of

a

simple

rhythmic gesture.

Second,

Beethoven

falls almost

immediately

into a

tonicization

of the

Neapolitan.

This use of Eb s not

unexpected

since it

does

occur

in the concerto

movement

proper

as a brief I?II6

n mm. 49 and 371 and

as a tonicized

key

area

in the

development

(m.

220ff.).

But the tonicization

of

this

key

at

the

opening

of the cadenza

and its concomitant

shift to the

parallel

minor

(Eb

minor)

introduces

a harmonic

move Mozart made

in none of his

surviving

cadenzas,

one that

is, rather,

characteristic

of

Beethoven's

music.52

Eb

minor

quickly

gives

way

to the

appearance

of the second theme

of

the

second tonal

area

(S2,

m.

19ff.),

a theme

that

appears

in the concerto

only twice: in the solo exposition (in F major, the key of the mediant) and

in the

recapitulation

(in

tonic).

Beethoven's

choice of this

theme is

certainly

appropriate;

since

it could

be considered

an underused and

underdeveloped

theme

in the

movement

proper,

the cadenza

is the ideal

place

to revisit

it.53

51 See MacArdle

and

Misch 1957

(56),

which

supposes

Beethoven

played

his cadenza

in

the context

of Mozart's

concerto

at a benefit

concert

for Constanze

Weber Mozart

on March

31,

1795.

52 Beethoven's

sudden

shifts to the

Neapolitan

are

legion

and include such notable examples as the new, E-minor

theme

in

the

development

of the

first movement of the

"Eroica,"

he

appearance

of the main theme

in

Ft

minor dur-

ing

the final

movement of the

Eighth Symphony,

and the

D-major

second movement

of the

Cl-minor

string

quartet,

op.

131.

53 One could

extrapolate

from the remarks of

Grayson

1998

(56) that development of underused or neglected themes is

a laudable function of the cadenza.






240

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

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The

Cadenza as Parenthesis 241

The choice

of

key,

however,

is

undeniably

Beethoven.

B

major

arrives as a

closely

related

key

to the

preceding

El?

Dtt)

minor,

albeit with enharmonic

reinterpretation.54But its tonal relation is as far from the D-minor tonic as

possible:

not

only

is it

opposite

D minor

on the circle

of

fifths,

but it is also

opposite

in

mode.

Here, then,

for an instant Beethoven

opens up

a new har-

monic

world,

almost

as if our musical

protagonist

had

stepped

out of the

black-and-white

Kansas

of Mozartean classic-era

onality

into the Technicolor

wonder of Beethoven's

romantic third

relations,

remaking

Mozart's

S2

theme

in

Beethoven's

own musical

image.

The concentration

on

S2,

a

theme here related

by

chromatic third to

tonic,

is a

quintessential^

romantic-era

gesture.55

t

is

important

to remem-

ber

that the use

of a

major-mode

second theme in minor-mode sonata forms

requires some adjustment in the recapitulation. In the nineteenth-century,

the

most usual

solution is for the

composer

to

present

the theme

in

tonic

major,

making

this S theme

something

of a

redemptive agent

that

rescues

the

formal narrative

from the minor

mode. The other

possibility

Mozart's

choice

in his concerto

-

is to alter the

theme such that it works

n

tonic

minor.

Thus,

Beethoven's

presentation

of

S2

in B

accomplishes

two

remakings

of

Mozart.

First,

the

use of

B,

the minor third below

the tonic

d,

balances the

F-majorpresentation

of

S2

we receive

in Mozart'sconcerto movement

proper,

making

a case

for

hearing

this theme related

by symmetrical

minor thirds to

tonic. While

a classic-era

composer

would have

doubtlessly

chosen

the dia-

tonic

and

asymmetrical

Bb

major (a major

hird

below

tonic)

as tonicization

of

6,

Beethoven

prefers

the

chromatic

B

major.56

econd,

the use of B

major

provides

the

major-mode,

redemptive quality

of second-tonal-material-in-the-

recapitulation

favored

by

the romantic

idiom,

a sort

of

Beethovenian

per

aspera

adastra

alternate

ending

to the tonal-thematic

narrative

of the concerto.

Thus,

I marked this

theme

S2codaidev

n the

cadenza overview

n

Example

12b

to indi-

cate

both its

further

development

and the formal function

of a romantic-era

rehearing

of this theme's

relationship

to the movement

proper.

Finally,

Beethoven's

motion from the cadenza's

opening

V%

o the inter-

polated

iv chord

in m. 36 is an

incipient

equal

division of

the

octave, Eb-B-G,

54 Kramer

1991

(126-31)

discusses

Beethoven's cadenza

at

length

and

the effect

it has when heard

next to Mozart's

music.

While

Richard Kramer

notes,

as

I

do,

the

Beethove-

nian

foreignness

of

B

major,

I

find his

explanation

of B as a

Cb,

the

"ghost

of an

augmented

sixth

chord,"

less convinc-

ing

than a

hearing

of B as

part

of a chain of

major

thirds

Eb-B-G,

leading

to the subdominant.

55 Friedman

1989

(271)

states that

subsidiary

themes

in

Beethoven's

cadenzas

always

occur

in

keys

other than those

in which

they appeared

in

the

movement

proper.

56

B

major

is one of Beethoven's

favorite

"surprise" keys

-

a tonality he often uses in his piano music for abruptdistant-

key

relationships.

Some

examples

include the third

move-

ment of the

C-major piano

concerto,

just

after the

cadenza;

the first movement of

the

G-major

concerto,

mm.

6-7,

just

after the soloist introduces the

main theme

in

G;

the sec-

ond tonal area of the first movement

of the

"Emperor"

Con-

certo;

the second movement of the

"Emperor"

Concerto

(enharmonically,

a

huge

Cb hat resolves as be to 5

[Bb]

n

the

transition to the final

movement);

the second tonal area of

the first movement of the

G-major

sonata,

op.

31/1

;

and the

ending

of the

op.

77

Fantasy,

which

begins

in

G minor.

In the

first movement of the Ninth

Symphony,

there

is a

shift to

B

major

within a local

Bb

major

context

(mm.

108-15).

In

most

of these

cases,

B

major

is an unstable area and moves back

via sequence, modal mixture, and/or enharmonic reinterpre-

tation to a more

expected,

stable tonal area.






242

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC THEORY

another

Beethovenian harmonic

strategy.Again,

this is

a

prolongational

strat-

egy

we would not

expect

to find in

Mozart's music. The

use of

bll,

B

major,

and the Eb-B-G chain of

major

thirds

may

also invite us to hear a sort of com-

mentary

on

Mozart'smusic.

During

the return to

V,

Beethoven

includes,

as a

parting

shot,

an

impromptu recapitulation

of

the

P2

theme

-

a theme Mozart

omitted from the

concerto's

recapitulation

space.

We can

imagine

Beethoven

telling

us,

in so

many

notes,

that had the concerto been

his,

Mozart's

surface-

level chromaticism would have found its

way

onto

deeper

structural evels

in

Beethoven's hands.

Moreover,

the concerto's second theme and

second tonal

area would have

played

a

larger

role

in

structuring

Beethoven's

tonal-thematic

narrative.

3.

Tonally

nessentialbut

formally

essential.

The third

possibility,

tonally

inessential cadenzas essential to formal coherence, is extremely uncommon.

Couching

a

necessary component

of the form within the surface-level

elabora-

tion of a

single harmony

whose

prolongational

rhetoric

suggests

a

parentheti-

cal insertion is to

pit

form

against

tonality certainly possible, especially

in

romantic-era

music,

but

apparently

rare with

regard

to the

cadenza.57One

example

is the

opening

of Richard Strauss s

symphonic poem,

Till

Eulenspiegels

Lustige

Streiche.

erhaps

as one

of TilVs

ricks,

the

opening

horn

theme is

given

cadenza-like

exposition

between a

V^and

its resolution to V7 and

I

(Bribitzer-

Stull

and Gauldin

2007,

9).

4.

Tonally

ssential ut

ormally

nessential.Cadenzas that are

tonally

essen-

tial to the movement at hand are

relativelyeasy

to deal with because

they

must

be

included

in

any

Schenkerian

graph

of

the movement. Such is the case with

the

second movement of Rachmaninov's Piano

Concerto no.

2

in C minor.

The

cadenza

spans

mm.

122-29

of the

movement,

being

initiated

by

an

orches-

tral

Neapolitan harmony.

The

return of the orchestra on tonic seven bars ater

requires

the

intervening

solo

material

in

order to make

good

harmonic

sense,

but the solo

material itself

comprises

the

flashy

virtuoso scalar

passages

and

rolled chords

typical

of Rachmaninov rather

than

any

bona fide thematic

material.

Thus,

analysis

of this

cadenza

requires

little outside of

including

its

tonal

structure as a

component

of

the movement

proper.

5.

Tonally

ssential ut

ormally

unclear. here can be

little

question

that the

cadenza to Schumann'sAllegro with Introduction for Piano and Orchestrain

D

minor is

essential to

the movement's

tonal structure.

The

opening,

fermata

harmony

is

Vit

of

IV,

while the

cadenza closes on

the dominant with

the orches-

tral

reentry

occurring

over

\\

.

Although

a

root-position

subdominant would

have

served as an

effective link

between the

boundary

harmonies,

Schumann's

57

Formal

parentheses

are

propounded

in

(1)

Kimball

1991,

which

draws

upon

the

writings

of

Riepel

and

Marx

in

asking

us to

hear the

second theme

as an

insertion into a

piece

whose

primary

narrative

is one of

thematic

unity;

(2)

Kinder-

man

1988,

which defines

parentheses

as

based on musical

contrast

followed

by resumption

of thematic

content,

regis-

ter, texture,

and/or

motive after the

interruption

and

consid-

ers

this to be a

particularly

Beethovenian

gesture;

and

(3)

Samarotto 1999

(193-208).







~

The Cadenza as Parenthesis 243

harmonies

follow a rather more

circuitous route

through

the

cadenza,

summa-

rized

in

Example

13a. Note the

opening applied-chord

harmony changes

to a

diminished seventh that resolves to the supertonic, supporting6 in the upper

line.

A fourth

progression

from

6

lands

on an

Ft-major

chord,

expanded by

an

extended

neighboring

%

hat allows the second

theme to

appear

in the remote

key

of B.

The remainder

of the cadenza

moves back toward

supertonic

har-

mony

and

eventually

accomplishes

the

customary

melodic descent

to

2

above

the dominant.

Rather than

resolving

to a

root-position

tonic,

though,

the

orchestral

reentry

converts

V to

V2,

allowing

for a fluid entrance

into another

presentation

of

the S material

in tonic.

Formally,

he

cadenza

is not

obviously ntegral

to the

movement,

although

the use

of thematic

material

from earlier

in

the

work lends it a measure

of

formal salience. The development of the transitional idea (Ti)- a falling

diminished

fourth

following by rising

half-step

is

hardly significant,

given

the

appearance

of

this material

both

in

the

introduction

and

in

the

develop-

ment.

But

the

appearance

of the

Sj

theme

in

B

major

serves to introduce

a

sense

of tonal

completeness

to this

theme

similar to that

discussed above

in

Beethoven's

cadenza to

Mozart's

D-minor

concerto.

The

original presentation

of the

Si

theme

in

F

is

counterbalanced

tonally by

the

presentation

in B in the

cadenza;

each

tonal

area

lies a minor third

away

rom

the tonic

D.

Moreover,

F

is native

to

D

minor,

while

B

(minor

here

major

to accommodate

the

theme)

is native

to

D

major.

Later

in the

cadenza,

the

comingling

of

D

major

and

D minor is fur-

thered

by

modal

mixture

in which an Y\

Stufe

and the use

of

té,

supported

by

minor

i,

take

place

underneath

a

significant

melodic

gesture.

The dotted-

eighth-followed-by-sixteenth

rhythm

in the

right

hand

of the

piano

moves

from the

(augmented)

fourth

of the

Tx

theme

to the

(major)

sixth

of the

Sï

theme,

each

an

expressive

opening

interval

integral

to thematic

identity.

The

Ti

+

Si

coda

marking

in

Example

13b

refers to

this

phenomenon.

Moreover,

Schumann's

coupling

of the

S!

sixth and

the tonal

purview

of

D minor alludes

to a

more

thorough

sense

of tonal

integration

between the

two

keys

in

which

S!

appeared

earlier:

D

major

and

F

major.

Faced

with the

same

recapitulation-

of-S

problem

discussed

earlier

in

the

context of

Mozart's

D-minor

concerto,

Schumann, in effect, has his cake and eats it, too, by presenting Si in the tonic

major

during

the

recapitulation

and

by

bringing

it into

relation with

tonic

minor

in

the

coda.

In

sum, then,

by

thematically inking

T!

and

Si

and

tonally

linking

D minor

and

D

major,

the cadenza's

conclusion

provides

a sense

of

unity

that,

while

not essential

for formal

coherence,

nevertheless could

not

be

simply

deleted

without

impoverishing

the listener's

understanding

of the

work.

6.

Tonally

nd

ormally

ssential

As with the other

tonally

essential

exam-

ples,

the

first cadenza

in

the

first movement

of Liszt's

Piano Concerto

no.

1 in

El?

major

must

be

included

in

any

tonal

analysis

of

the

movement

since it ame-

liorates the parallel octaves between the VI chord that initiates the cadenza






244

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of

MUSIC

THEORY

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Example

14.

Overview of the

first

cadenza

in

the first movement

of

Liszt's

Piano Concerto no.

1 in

Eb

major

and the

V chord that concludes it.

Moreover,

the

opening

of the cadenza

pre-

sents an

arpeggiated

retransitional idea that not

only

leads into a

statement

of the main

theme

in

C

major

in

the

cadenza,

but also returns near the end

of the movement to lead back into the main theme in Fl (m. 7Off.).Thus, the

cadenza

is itself

formally

essential

because it

exposes

thematic

material to be

used later

in

the

movement

(see

Example

14).

7.

Tonally

nclearbut

ormally

nessential

In

this

category

I

include caden-

zas whose

main

purpose

is

virtuosic

display

devoid of

thematic

content

but

whose harmonic

boundary points

are not

entirely

clear. The cadenza to Schu-

mann's

Fantasy

for Violin and

Orchestra in C

major

discussed earlier and

presented

in

Example

10 fits this

description nicely.

Not

only

is the cadenza's

closing

harmony questionable,

but the

formal need for a cadenza

in

this work

is doubtful

since an

opportunity

for virtuosic

display hardly

needs to be

pro-

vided,

given

the

many flashy,

technical

passages

in the movement

proper.

8.

Tonally

nd

ormally

unclear.Brahms's cadenza for the first movement

of Mozart'sPiano

Concerto

in G

major,

K.

453,

is

another

excellent

example

of a

romantic

rehearing

of Mozart.58

graph

of the cadenza's tonal structure

appears

in

Example

15a. Measure

numbers

again

begin

with

"1"

or the

open-

ing

4

chord.

Upon

reaching

the end of the

cadenza, however,

the measure

numbers

revert to

those

of

the movement

proper

(m.

328ff.).

In

this

cadenza,

Brahms also remakes

many

features

of Mozart'sconcerto

movement,

inviting

the

listener to

"rehear" hem with the addition

of Brahms's own harmonic

fingerprints.

For

example,

Mozart's

expansion

of the dominant within the

second

tonal area

(marked

ST

n

Example

15b to reflect its transitional func-

tion within the second tonal area, mm. 130-39) is recomposed by Brahmsin

mm.

18-22

of the cadenza.

Brahms retains Mozart'ssixteenth-note

arpeggio

figure

to remind

the listener

of this moment

in

the concerto

movement,

but

whereas

Mozart's

descending

fifths

sequence

at that

point

is

diatonic,

leading

from

Bb

(locally

I?

I)

to d

(locally,

)

as

part

of a

larger expansion

of

A

(locally,

V),

Brahms's version

is

fully

chromatic,

leading

from

Bb

to

Z)/>,

hich then

functions as

an enharmonic dominant

of

Ft

major.

This

sequence

also forms

part

of a dominant

prolongation,

but this one is Brahmsian a

complete

divi-

58

Aspects

of this cadenza

are discussed

in

Wang

1997

(161-65).






246

JOURNAL

of

MUSIC

THEORY

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cadenza

ending

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f-'

f

J'l-J

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"5

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6-S

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"5

V

!

Tonal tructure

ithcadenza

nding

on

I

(b)

K

dev

^Tdev

^T

dev

**

dev

V7/HII

Mil Wii1' Vili*

v^~7

(v5

v7

wfi)

Example

15.

Analysis

of Brahms's cadenza to the

first

movement

of Mozart's

Piano

Concerto

in

G

major,

K.

453.

(a)

Comparison

of

post-cadenza

measures' tonal structure,

(b)

Cadenza

overview

sion of the

octave into

major

thirds:

D-Bb-Ff-D.

One

might imagine

this

to be

a

telescoped

and

chromatically

altered

transformation

of

the diatonic

chains

of

descending

thirds in

Mozart's

concerto that

appear

in mm.

35-40

leading

down from I to V

(Brahms

also

quotes

these

in

his

cadenza,

mm.

11-16).

Brahms'scadenza

prolongs

the dominant at the

deepest

tonal level and

makes use of

symmetrical

third relations. But

by

far

the

most

startling

ele-

ment of

this cadenza is the license Brahms takes with

its conclusion.

Here,

V

resolvesdeceptivelyto bVI,a move made possible byMozart's coring:The end







~

The

Cadenza

as

Parenthesis

247

of the

cadenza resolves

to a

bare

octave G

in

the cellos and basses. Because

of Brahms s

bVI,

the

analysis

in

Example

15

ignores

Mozart's tonic

pedal

in

bars 328-30 in favor of the harmonic motion going on in the upper voices.

Brahms's

El? hord

here serves two

purposes.

It is itself

an

unexpected, unpre-

pared,

almost

puerile

gesture,

a sort

of

nose-thumbing

at the rhetorical closure

of the cadenza.

But it also

mimics one

might say

mocks a similar

gesture

in

the movement

proper.

Mozart'sorchestral

closing

section

in

both the

expo-

sition

and the

recapitulation

(mm.

49-53 and

319-23)

avoids tonic closure

with

a

brief,

deceptive

tonicization

of

Ek

These abbreviated

purple patches

seem

gratuitous,

almost

dare we

say

it?

parenthetical,

since neither El?

nor

the melodic

gesture

of

these

passages

plays

a

significant

role elsewhere

in

the

movement.

If this

hearing

is

plausible,

then

Brahms's

El?

nding

not

only

sub-

verts the cadenza's close parenthesis, but also extends the sense of Mozart's

insertion

begun

in m. 319. Since the

harmonic

progression

and

rhetoric of

the

bar-long

trill on

2

in m. 318 set

up

an

expectation

for

I,

the

appearance

of

I?

I

(El?)

hwarts hat

expectation.

The

appearance

of the

cadential

V4,

the

cadenza,

and the

resolution to

V and

I in mm.

327-28

would

normally

be

heard

to ameliorate

the

earlier,

thwarted authentic

cadence,

but

in

Brahms's

cadenza

we are

forced to

wait

yet

again.

Now,

it is the orchestral cadence

in

m.

332

that

achieves

tonal closure.

Remarkably,

Brahms's cadenza

shifts the

moment

of tonal

closure for the

entirework orward

four

bars,

affecting

(albeit

slightly)

both

the tonal

and formal architecture

of Mozart's

movement.

9.

Tonally

unclear

but

ormally

essential.For

my

final

category

I

turn

to

the first

movement

of Sibelius

s Violin

Concerto. Serious

consideration must

be

given

to this

cadenza

in

any

form

analysis

of the movement

since it is the

cadenza

itself that

comprises

the

entirety

of

the

development,

working

with

the

principal

thematic

material

in

a series

of

rising

iterations

punctuated

by

planed

diminished-seventh

sonorities.

Tonally,

t is clear

that the cadenza

par-

ticipates

in the

prolongation

of the subdominant

harmony,

which moves from

first

inversion

in m.

114

to

root-position

in m.

163

(shown

by

the

slur con-

necting

iv6 to

iv in

Example

16).

What

remains unclear

is

exactly

where the

cadenza

begins

(hence

the

curly

brackets

in

Example

16).

If

the final

orches-

tral

statement

before

the

exclusively

solo material

is

taken as

the

beginning,

then the cadenza properbegins on the minor dominant (m. 125) and ends on

Pidev

planing"7

v^

V/l^vi*

tlvi*

planing

°7

iv

iv6

V7/vl1

v^

iv)

Example

16. Overview

of the

cadenza

in

the

first

movement

of Sibelius's Violin Concerto







~

The Cadenza as

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major,

K. 453: The First Movement Caden-

zas."

D.M.A.

diss.,

University

of Cincinnati

College-Conservatory

of

Music.

Whitmore, Philip.

1991.

Unpremeditated

rt:

The Cadenza in the Classical

Keyboard

Concerto.

Oxford:Clarendon.

Matthew

Bribitzer-Stull

is associate

professor

of music

theory

at the

University

of

Minnesota. He

won the

Society

for Music

Theory's

2007

Emerging

Scholar Award for his article

"The Ak-C-E

Complex:

The

Origin

and

Function of

Chromatic

Major-Third

Collections

in

Nineteenth-Century

Music,"

published

in

Music

Theory Spectrum.

G**

cadenza as parenthesis

Documents