tesis berg op2

PM-1 3Vi"*4" PHOTOGRAPHIC MICROCOPY TARGET NBS 1010a ANSI/130 #2 EQUIVALENT

PRECISION8* RESOLUTION TARGETS

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

National Library Biblioth6que nationaleB m of Canada du Canada

Acquisitions and Direction d es acquisitions etBibliographic Services Branch d es services bibliographiques

395 Wellington Street 395. rue W e’!- gtonOttawa, Ontario Ottawa (Ontauo)K1A0N4 K1A0N4

Our Notrv rt»/#vwv <■

NOTICE

The quality of this microform is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original thesis submitted for microfilming. Every effort has been made to ensure the highest quality of reproduction possible.

If pages are missing, contact the university which granted the degree.

Some pages may have indistinct print especially if the original pages were typed with a poor typewriter ribbon or if the university sent us an inferior photocopy.

Reproduction ;n full or in part of this microform is governed by the Canadian Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1970, c. C-30, and subsequent amendments.

AVIS

La qualite de cette microforme depend grandement de la qualite de la these soumise au microfilmage. Nous avons tout fait pour assurer une qualite superieure de reproduction.

S’il manque des pages, veuiliez communiquer avec I’universite qui a confere le grade.

La qualite d’impression de certaines pages peut laisser a desirer, surtout si ies pages originates ont etedactylographies a I’aide d’un ruban use ou si I’universite nous a fait parvenir une photocopie de quality inferieure.

La reproduction, meme partielle, de cette microforme est soumise a la Loi canadienne sur le droit d’auteur, SRC 1970, c. C-30, et ses amendements subsequents.

CanadaReproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

TONALITY AND ATONALITY IN ALBAN BERG'S FOUR SONGS, OP. 2

by

Gary R. Tucker

Faculty of Music

Submitted m partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor o f Philosophy

Faculty of Graduate Studies The University o f Western Ontario

London, Ontario August 1995

© Gary R. Tucker 1995


■ ♦ INational Libraryof CanadaAcquisitions and Bibliographic Services Branch395 Wedtngton Street Ottawa. Ontario K1A0N4

Bibtiothdque nationals du Canada

Direction des acquisitions et des services bibliographiques395. rue Wellington Ottawa (Ontario)K1A0N4

Your tie Yob e rof&ence

Ouf fde Notre r&frence

THE AUTHOR HAS GRANTED AN IRREVOCABLE NON-EXCLUSIVE LICENCE ALLOWING THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA TO REPRODUCE, LOAN, DISTRIBUTE OR SELL COPIES OF HIS/HER THESIS BY ANY MEANS AND IN ANY FORM OR FORMAT, MAKING THIS THESIS AVAILABLE TO INTERESTED PERSONS.

L'AUTEUR A ACCORDE UNE LICENCE IRREVOCABLE ET NON EXCLUSIVE PERMETTANT A LA BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE DU CANADA DE REPRODUIRE, PRETER, DISTRIBUER OU VENDRE DES COPIES DE SA THESE DE QUELQUE MANIERE ET SOUS QUELQUE FORME QUE CE SOIT POUR METTRE DES EXEMPLAIRES DE CETTE THESE A LA DISPOSITION DES PERSONNE INTERESSEES.

THE AUTHOR RETAINS OWNERSHIP OF THE COPYRIGHT IN HIS/HER THESIS. NEITHER THE THESIS NOR SUBSTANTIAL EXTRACTS FROM IT MAY BE PRINTED OR OTHERWISE REPRODUCED WITHOUT HIS/HER PERMISSION.

L’AUTEUR CONSERVE LA PROPRIETE DU DROIT D'AUTEUR QUI PROTEGE SA THESE. NI LA THESE NI DES EXTRAITS SUBSTANTIELS DE CELLE- CINE DOIVENT ETREIMPRIMES OU AUTREMENT REPRODUITS SANS SON AUTORISATION.

ISBN 0 -61 2 -0 3 4 9 5 -X

C a n a d a _______________________________________________________


N a m * ( y txru ~Tbc.ke.r_______ ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _____ftmrtDhon AhshocH LrttamMbno/ is ansngad by broad, general subject categories. Please select the one subject which most nearly describes the content of your dissertation. Enter the corresponding four-digit code in the spoces provided.

_____________________ M t / C i r , __________________________________________________________________h k l / H U - M - ISU8JKTTBM SUBJECT COW

Subject Categoriesn m NUMANITIIS AND SOCIAL SCIINCISCOAMMNCATKMS AND THE ARTSArchiledure.............................. 0729Art History.................................0377G nsm a ...................................0900Dane*....................................... 0378FmeArts...................................0357tafarmabon Scenes .............. 0723Joumalam................................. 0391Ubrary Science......................... 0399Mom Communications...............0708Music........................................ 0413Speech Communication.............0459Theater..................................... 0465

e d u c a tio nGeneral.................................... 0515Administration.......................... 0514Adult and Continuing................0516Agricultural Z .................0517Art.............................................0273Bilingual and Multicultural 0282Business.................................... 0688Community Colegs.................. 0275Curriculum and Instruction 07276orly Childhood........................ 0518Eltonentary ................................0524Finance .................................... 0277Guidance and Counseling . . .0519Health ... 0680Higher..................................... 0745History oh................ . .. 0520Horn* Economics...................... 0278Industrial................................... 0521language and literature 0279Mathematics............................. 0280Move........................................ 0522fttilosophy of ......................... 0998Physical................................... 0523

* -1-1 - E S d K g ^ .

...................... 0525....................... 0535....................... 0527

Sciences..................................... 0714Secondary..................................0533Social Sciences...........................0534Sociology o l ...............................0340S p e d a l .................................... 0529Teacher Training.........................0530Technology ..........................0710Tests ondMeasursments.............0288Vocational.................................. 0747

LANGUA0L LITERATURE AND UNGUIS1K5Inw unw

GeSSol ...............................0679Andenl.................................0289Linguistics.............................0290

.0291 literature

General................................0401Classical...............................0294Comparative ...................... 0295Medieval..............................0297Modem................................0298African................................. 0316Americon ............................0591A sian................................... 0305Canadian (English) .............0352Conod ian (French) ............... 0355English ..............................0593Germanic ........................0311Latin Americon ....................0312Middle Eastern ................... 0315Romance ....................0313Slavic and East European 0314

PtHtOSOPNY, RELIGION AND THE0L06YPhilosophy................................. 0422Religion

General................................. 0318Biblical Studies .....................032)Clergy................................. 0319History of............................. 0320Philosophy o f ........................ 0322

Theology..................................... 0469

SOCIAL SOENOSAmerican Studies..................... 0323Anthropology

A rchosow gy....................... 0324C u ltu ra l? : ...........................0326Physical ............................0327

Business AdministrationGeneral................................. 0310Accounting.......................... 0272Banking ............................. 0770Management........................ 0454Marketing.............................. 0338

Canadian Studies ...................... 0385Economics

General ........................0501Agricultural...................... 0503Commerce-Business........... 0505Finance ........................ 0508History............................ 0509l a b o r ........................ 0510Theory............................0511

Folklore 0358Geography . 0366Gerontology .. 0351History

General 0578

Ancient......................... 0579....................... 0581

.................... 0582Black............................. 0328African...........................0331Asia, Australia and Oceania 0332Canadian....................... 0334Eurapeon....................... 0335Latin American................ 0336Middfe Eastern ............. 0333United Stales.................. 0337

History of Science..................0585Low.................................... 0398Political Science

General..........................0615international law and

Relations...................... 0616Public Administration ........ 0617

Recreation............................0814Social W ork.........................0452

s° cS S d .................................o u tCriminology and Penology. .0627Demography.........................0938Ethnic and Racial Studies .. 0631 Individual and Family

Studies............ I . .........0628Industrial and labor

Relations............................ 0629Public and Social Welfare... 0630 Social Structure and

Development................... 0700Theory and Methods.............0344

Transportation .................... 0709Urban and Regionol Planning . 0999 Women's Studies........................0453

THE SCIENCES AND ENGINEERINGM u a a i s a n a sAgriculture

General.................Agronomy................Animal Culture and

Nutrition ..............Animal Pathology. . Food Science and

Technology...........Forestry a r n 1Wildlife . Plant Culture ...........^ E F W o g ynon* rhypcbgy.. . Konot Monootmenf.VA/nrTrl Tert.n J nn.VvOOu itcnnoioQy • .,*

General...................Anatomy..................Biosiatistics............

Cell...............

£ & S k Z ,"cmomrogy........Genetics..............limnology............Microbiology........M oleader?..........Neuroscience........Oceanography

yj&ogyRadiation......V#Brirary jrjmnee. Zoology................

BwpnyUCiV* '- Iv j t n r a ............Medical.............

earth s a m a sBiogspchemistry.........

04730285

04750476

0359047804790480 08170777

.0746

0306 028703080309 0379 0329 0353

.0369

.0793 04100307

.0317 0416 0433 08210778 0472

07860760

.0425QQQA

Geodesy .. .

a s s * . -Hydrology. Mineralogy Paleobotany Pdeoecoiogy.

................... 0370

................... 0372 0373

0388 0411

0345................ 0426...................0418

Foleazoowgy.......................... 0985Pofynotooy.. • 0427Physical Geography................... 0368 -Physicol Qcconogrophy.............0415

HEALTH AND ENVM0NMENTAL SOENOSEnvironmental Sciences .............0768Li 14 ----nDCRtn wCfDrl Re

General................................ 0566Audiology........................ 0300Chemotherapy ................. 0992Dentistry .............................. 0567Education........................... 0350Hospital Management...........0769Human Development ............0758Immunology........................ 0982Medicine and Surgery ........ 0564Mental Health ......................0347Nursing ............................... 0569Nutrition............................... 0570Obstetrics and Gynecology . 0380 Occupational Hea lth and

Therapy............................. 0354Ophthalmology................. 0381Pathology............................. 0571Pharmacology.......................0419Phormaey ........................0572Physical Therapy ................. 0382Public Health ............. 0573Radiology .......................0574

Speech Pathology Toxicology .

Home Economics

PHYSICAL SOLMCESRind SciencesChemistry

GeneralAgricultural . . Analytical Biochemistry ..Inorganic............Nuclear ..........O rganic...............Pharmaceutical . .Physicol ...............Polymer................Radiation ...........

PhysicsGeneral............Acoustics.........Astronomy and

AstrophysicsAtmospheric Science.......Atomic ................. .........Electronics and Electricity Elementary Particles and

High Energy.................Fluidond Plasma............Molecular........................Nuclear ...........................O ptics..............................Radiation........................Solid Stale.......................

Statistics..................................* — R9—a -------A ppN Q x m c c sApplied Mechanics................nAi< I"’---■________

046003830386

04850749

.0486

.0487

.0488073804900491

.0494 0495 0754

.0405

0605 .0986

0606 .0608 0748 0607

07980759

.0609

.061007520756

.06110463

Engineering General.. Aerospace. . . Agricultural Automotive .. Biomedicol... Chemical... Civil .

05370538

...............0539 0540................0541 0542

0543Electronics and Electrical.. . 0544 Heat and Thermodynamics. 0348 Hydraulic....................... 0545

.0346QQR4

IndustrialMarine.............Materials Science Mechanical .. . Metallurgy . ...Mining..............Nuclear.............

rcirncuiTi .........Sanitary and Municipa System Science .

Geotachnofagy .. . Operations Research Plastics Technology . Textile Technology

PSYCHOLOGYGeneral . . . .Behavioral..............Clinical...................Developmental........Experimental .....Industrial ............Personality...........Physiological.. . .Psychobwfogy .......Psychometrics ......Social ....................

0546 . 0547

. . 0794 .0548

...0743 . 0551

... 0552 ... 0549 0765.. 0554 ...0790 . 0428

0796 0795

. 0994

0621038406220620062306240625

.0989 0349 0632

.0451


T T ^ U M V E R S r T Y o f W E S T E R N O N T M OF n n t l t j i <>) ( r f w i n n t r St{i<iic\

In the interests o f facilitating esearch by others at this institution and elsewhere, I herebygrant a licence t o :

THE U N IV ER SIT Y O F W ESTERN O N T A R IO

to make cop ies o f m y thesis

TONALITY AND ATONAL ITY IN ALBAN BERG'S FOUR SONGS, OP. 2

or substantia! parts thereof, the copyright which is invested in m e, provided that the licence issubject to the fo llow ing conditions:

1. O nly single cop ies shall be made or authorized to be made at any one tim e, and only in response to a written request from the library o f any University or similar institution on its ow n beh alf or on behalf o f one o f its users.

2. This licence shall continue for the full term o f the copyright, or for so long as may be legally perm itted .

3. The Universal Copyright N otice shall appear on the title page o f all copies o f m y thesis made under the authority o f this licence.

4. This licence does not permit the sale o f authorized cop ies at a profit, but does permit the collection by the institution or institutions concerned o f charges covering actual costs.

5. All cop ies m ade under the authority o f this licence shall bear a statem ent to the effect that the co p y in question “is being made available in this form by the authority o f the co p y right ow ner so lely for the purpose o f private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced ex cep t as perm itted by the copyright laws w ith ou t written authority from the copyright o w n er .”

6. The foregoing shall in no way preclude m y granting to the National Library o f Canada a l icence to reproduce m y thesis and to lend or sell cop ies o f the same

( {signature o f witness )Y FXA S - i

(signature o f student)(signature o f

S e p t e m b e r 1 8 , 1995 P h . D . Mus i c

(date) (degree) (department o f student)


THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION

Chief Advisor Examining Board

/

Advisory Committee ^ ^ /•1

Cof td

The thesis by Gary R Tucker

entitledTonality and Atonality m Alban Berg’s Four Songs, Op 2

is accepted in partial fulfilment o f the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

- ^ v V \ V -Chair of Examining Board

ii


ABSTRACT

Alban Berg composed his Four Songs between 1908 and 1910, they were

published in the latter year as his Op. 2. This was a critical period for Berg as for

his mentor, Arnold Schoenberg, and his colleague Anton Webern The latter two

composers both later remembered 1908 as the year all three of them abandoned

traditional tonality and began to write '‘atonal’' music. There are problems,

however, with the categories “tonal” and “atonal.” Webern denied that the shift

from one to the other really involved any radical change in how they handled pitch

materials in their music. In Berg’s Four Songs questions of tonality and atonality

appear to be central: the first three of these songs are usually held to be still

(barely) tonal, while the last song is often termed Berg's first atonal composition.

In the present thesis the author examines issues of tonality and atonality through

an analytic study of pitch design in the Four Songs. Underlying this analysis is a

preference to regard tonality and atonality not as opposite principles, but as

complementary contexts in which pitch structure may be understood. Tonality, in

this view, involves structural designs that address specific pitch classes. Atonality

involves designs that invoice purely mtervallic properties of pitch materials. All

four songs in Berg’s opus may therefore be seen to project both tonal and atonal

elements of pitch structure. This approach has the effect of maintaining a sense of

continuity across the analyzed structure of all the songs.

The analysis itself begins with a general introduction to the pitch materials and

relationships of the songs. A separate chapter is then devoted to the analysis of

each song. These analyses are both detailed, often examining the same pitches from

iii


a number of viewpoints, and comprehensive, covering virtually every note in the

songs. The analyses stress not only Berg’s adoption o f novel pitch resources but

also his awakening to new possibilities of structure in traditional resources.

Especially crucial in three of the songs is Berg’s integration of the tonal and atonal

implications of whole-tone materials.

iv


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An analytical thesis which takes some one hundred and sixty pages to examine

eighty-five measures of music might charitably be termed “exhaustive ” Likewise

an author who spins the completion of this thesis out over six years might

charitably be termed “deliberate.” It is, I think, a tribute to all those who have

helped me during this study that the less charitable terms—many of which have

certainly occurred to me—have never crossed their lips. 1 therefore thank them all

primarily for their kindness and their great patience. It was never my intention that

I should give them such ample opportunity to display these virtues.

It has been a pleasure as well as an education to pursue this study under the

guidance of Dr. Richard Parks and Dr. Gail Dixon. They have always been sources

o f many stimulating ideas about my work. Moreover they have given me their

«*.*£•'.ntiou, freely and without complaint, even during vacation and sabbatical

times—a generosity far beyond the call of their duties. I could not have wished for

more encouraging and benevolent mentors. I thank also Dr. Richard Kurth, who

read drafts o f the early chapters of this thesis and responded with valuable

commentary and suggestions.

These early chapters were written at the University o f Western Ontario, in an

office I shared with Dr. John Doerksen, while we were both racing to complete our

doctorates. He won handily, despite my constant interruptions. Apart from many

hours of agreeable companionship, he has provided more stimulation to my

thinking about my work than I have hitherto acknowledged to him He has also

very kindly helped me with computer resources in preparing this thesis.

v


The latter stages of writing have taken place at Mount Allison University. My

new colleagues at Mount Allison’s Mi ;ic Department have maintained a lively

interest in my work. I thank especially Dr. Willis Noble, the Music Department

Head. Dr. Noble has been unfailingly supportive of my study, and generous in

granting me time to finish it. Mount Allison has been a most congenial spot in

which to complete a not-always-congenial task.

It is, of course, my family on whose kindness and patience I have drawn most

heavily. My wife, Nancy, has shouldered all of the domestic duties, borne all of

the waiting, and listened to all of the complaints in seeing me through this project.

Without her loving support I certainly could not have completed it. My daughters,

Karen and Helen, have tolerated their father’s near-constant absence now for fai

too long They will all likely be as happy as I shall be to return to a familial

normal order.

vi


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION uA BSTRA CT.................................................................................................................. mACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vTABLE OF C O N TEN TS...........................................................................................vhANALYTICAL CONVENTIONS x

CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1Historical Background............................................................................................. 5The Dates, Manuscripts, and Published Editions of the Four S o n g s ................7

CHAPTER 2 - TONAL AND ATONAL THEORIES AND BERG S PITCHSTRUCTURES ......................................................................................................10What Might Tonality (and Atonality) B e ? ......................................................... 10

Schoenberg’s Definitions ................................................................................11Schenker’s D efinition....................................................................................... 14Broader D efin itions....................................................................................... 17Two Kinds of T onality .................................................................................... 20

Analyzing Berg’s Tonality and Atonality ......................................................... 23Harmonic T heory.............................................................................................. 24Schenkerian T h eo ry ......................................................................................... 25Pitch-Class Set T h eo ry .................................................................................... 28

The Problem of U n ity ............................................................................................29

CHAPTER 3 - BERG’S FOUR S O N G S .................................................................30Texts and Text Expression.................................................................................... 31M otives.................................................................................................................... 33Formal Designs ..................................................................................................... 35Pitch Materials and Relationships........................................................................36

Key Signatures and Accidentals ................................................................... 37Prominent Pc Set Classes and their R elationships.......................................38

Tertian-diatonic C o llec tions..................................................................... 41

vii


Whole-tone Collections .......................................................................Whole-tone Dissonance: “Almost-whole-tone” sets ........................“Tritonal-quartal” Collections: The Supersets of 3-5 ......................Quartal C ollections.................................................................................Other Notable Collections ....................................................................

Other Pitch Materials and RelationshipsPerfect-fifth Dyads ..............................................................................Bass Motion and Tonal Relationships.................................................Interval Succession P atterns..................................................................Musical C yphers......................................................................................

CHAPTER 4 - SONG 3, “Nun ich der Riesen Starksten uberwand” ...............Text, Form, and M o tiv es ...................................................................................Harmonic D e s ig n ................................................................................................

Harmonic Pattern O n e .................................................................................Harmonic Pattern T w o .................................................................................A Schenkerian Interpretatic .......................................................................Newer Harmonic Relationships..................................................................

Linear Design .....................................................................................................Integrating the Harmonic and Linear Designs ...............................................

Section APhrase 1, mm. 1 -3 ...................................................................................Phrase 2, mm. 3-5 (6)...............................................................................

Section B, mm. (5)6-8 .................................................................................Section A', mm. 8 - 1 2 ...................................................................................

Interval-Succession Patterns..............................................................................

CHAPTER 5 - SONG 2, “Schlafend tragt man mich in mein Heimatland” . .Text, Form, and M o tiv es...................................................................................Ayrey’s Analysis ................................................................................................The 4-25 Chord ..................................................................................................An Overview of Pitch S tructu re.......................................................................

The Bass L in e ................................................................................................The 4-25 Chords: Atonal D esign ................................................................The 4-25 Chords: Tonal Design ...........................................................

Treble-Bass Models ...........................................................................................Sectional Analysis .............................................................................................

Section APhrase 1, mm. 1 -4 ....................................................................................Piano Interlude, mm 4 - 8 .......................................................................

Section B, mm. 9-13 ....................................................................................

viii

4245464749

49505152

545456585961636468

6972737475

79798485868889919294

949697


Section A', mm 1 3 -1 8 ..................................................................................101The Linking of Songs 2 and 3 .......................................................................... 103

CHAPTER 6 - SONG 1, “Schlafen, Schlafen, mchts als Schlafen!” . . . 1 0 6Text. Form, and M o tiv es.................................................. . . . . . 1 0 6An Overview of Pitch S tructu re................... ....................................... 109Sectional A n a ly s is .............................................................................................. 114

Section APhrase 1, mm. 1 -6 ................................................. . 1 1 4Phrase 2, mm. 6 -1 0 .......... 115

Section B, mm. 1 1 - 1 4 .......................................... 118Section C, mm. 1 4 - 2 0 .................................. 119Section A'

Division 1, mm. 21-25 ....................................... 122Division 2, mm. 26-30 . 124

Deeper-level Structure and the U r s a tz 125

CHAPTER 7 - SONG 4, “Warm die Lufte” ......................................................... 128Text, Form, and Motivic D esign ..................................... ...................... 129Tonal D e s ig n .......................................................................... 131Atonal Design ...................................................... . . . 136Sectional A n a ly s is ........................................................... 137

Section APhrase 1, mm. 1 -2 ............................................................................... 137Phrase 2, mm. 3 - 4 ...................................................... 140Phrase 3, mm. 4 - 6 ................................................................................. 141Phrase 4, mm. 7 - 8 ............................................................................... 142

Section BPhrases 5-6, mm. 9 -1 1 ............................................................................. 144Phrases 7-10, mm. 1 1 -1 8 ................................................................... 146

Section CPhrase 11, mm. 1 9 -2 2 .......................................................................... 150Phrase 12, mm. 22-25 .......................................................................... 151

CHAPTER 8 - CONCLUSIONS............................................................................. 157

APPENDIX - TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS 161

LIST OF SOURCES CITED ............................................................................... 163

V ITA .............................................................................................................................170

ix


ANALYTICAL CONVENTIONS

A large part of this thesis is given over to analysis o f Berg’s Four Songs. In my

analysis the following conventions apply

m(m) = measure(s)

pc(s) = pitch class(es)

ic(s) = interval class(es)

“RH”, “LH” = the right- and left-hand components of the piano part,

usually corresponding to the part’s upper and lower staves.

Depending on context I name pitch classes either by using integer notation

(0 to 11, 0 = C ) or by using their traditional letter names, in Roman capitals. I

name specific pitches in Italics in the manner illustrated below

Qvc-------• * »

< * - ‘ -T ------- r . .. . r T T :y 3— ,— - -T- - » — : ... ~ -

8" - -

A2 B 2 C, C 3 c b c1 b* c2 b2 c3 c4 b4 c 5

Again depending on context I name intervals either by using their traditional

names (minor second, perfect fourth, etc.) or by using integers (1 = 1 semitone,

2 = 2 semitones, etc.). I also use integers 1 to 6 for naming interval classes ( i c 1,

ic 2, etc.).

x


I often categorize pitch collections according to the taxonomy of pc set classes

developed by Allen Forte (see Forte 1973, 3-12, 179-181). When I find it relevant

to list the pc content of collections, I cite the pc numbers in “normal order,”

surrounded by square brackets, for example, 4-27 [3,5,8,11)7When I first introduce

a set class (mainly in chapter 3) I cite its “prime form,” with the pc numbers

placed in parentheses, for example, 4-27 (0258).

When discussing harmonies in traditional tonal contexts I also use roir.«n-

numeral and figured-bass terminology. When multiple figures are applied to a

chord symbol, I cannot show these vertically aligned in my text. I therefore array

them horizontally, for example, V6/5

In my musical examples I often accompany pc set names by horizontal brackets

which extend to indicate the compass of the sets. Brackets normally embrace only

those pitches on the staff directly above or below them. 1 enclose labels for sets

spanning the whole staff system in visibly thicker brackets below the system.

When, however, a label clearly refers to a chord I avoid brackets altogether. I also

enclose the pitches of some sets in partial boxes and link some non-contiguous

pitches into sets by stems and beams.

In all examples I retain the accidentals which precede almost every note in

Berg’s score. When applicable, 1 mark formal divisions in the songs by double

barlines. I also label formal units above the staff systems, for example, A B A ' .

Other conventions I use in my examples are variable; these I explain as I

present each example.

I assume that the reader has access to the score of Berg’s Vier Lieder fu r eirte

Singstimme mit Klavier, Op. 2 (Berlin: Robert Lienau, Vienna: Universal, 1928).

All musical examples from this score are reproduced with permission o f the

publisher.

Xi


CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

. . . I want to show you some more examples, partly to demonstrate again how gradually the change came about, and that in fact it’s impossible io fix a dividing line between old and new. Please understand, this reference to a tonic is meant to show how much all these changes still took place within the bounds of harmonic progression. There’s hardly a single consonant chord any more. But though things had gone so far, we still find the very important factor that governed music for centuries—this exploitation of relationship to a key. (Webern 1963, 50)

But things of this kind piled up more and more, and one day it was possible to do without the relationship to the tonic. For there was nothing consonant there any more . This moment—I can speak from personalexperience—this moment, in which we all took part, happened in about the year 1908. Now it’s 1933—so it’s 25 years ago—a jubilee, no less! (Webern 1963, 39)

In quoting from Anton Webern’s The Path to the New Music, I have taken his

words out of sequence and have plucked the above passages from their immediate

contexts. Webern’s own rather convoluted exposition has prompted this mal

treatment, and in any case I hope his overall context remains clear. Webern is

speaking here of the “break-up of tonality,” (Webern 1963, 44) a breakup that

occurred, he remembers, around 1908.

In tracing this breakup, Webern respectfully focuses on works by his teacher,

Arnold Schoenberg. For Webern, Schoenberg’s Op. 9 Kammersymphonie (1906)

and the two songs of Op 14 (December 1907 and February 1908) lie at the

extreme edge of tonality, while Das Buch der hangenden Garten (begun in March

1


2

1908) and the Op. 11 Klavierstucke (1909) are the first ‘“ atonal’ pieces” (Webern

1963, 44, 48-51). Webern could just as easily have discussed some of his own or

Alban Berg’s early music, for 1908 was also a watershed year for them. Webern’s

five Dehmel songs and his Opp. 1 and 2, all finished in that year, are also often

held to stretch tonality to its limits—limits which he then exceeded in his George

settings, Opp 3 and 4, begun later in 1908 (Griffiths 1980, 272) Meanwhile

Berg’s Seven Early Songs (the latest of which date from 1908), his Piano Sonata,

Op. 1 (from the same year), and the first three of his Four Songs, Op. 2 (probably

begun in 1908), appear to have brought him to the same tonal-atonal boundaries.

Berg is then said to have crossed those boundaries in the fourth song of Op 2 and

in his Op. 3 String Quartet of 1910 (Perle 1980a, 525).

The criterion Webern uses to distinguish between the tonal and the atonal in

Schoenberg’s works is clear: the presence or absence of “the relationship to the

tonic.” Yet Webern also emphasizes that things were not really that simple In

Schoenberg’s progress—and in his own and Berg’s—changes in the handling of

pitch materials were gradual and subtle, so that “in fact it’s impossible to fix a

dividing line between old and new.” The ambivalence of Webern’s statements

accords, I believe, with our experience o f the music he, Schoenberg, and Berg were

producing in the years around 1908. While the presence or absence of a plausible

tonic might allow us to distinguish the tonal from the atonal works, the boundary

between these categories is actually blurred. When we experience these works—the

supposedly tonal and the nominally atonal—we sense that some of the pitch

materials from the traditional tonal world are still present in both. Other such

materials are absent, replaced with newer elements whose coherence we must

account for in different ways. More fascinating still, we find older and newer

aspects of pitch structure so closely interwoven that they are often projected by the

same notes, i or the listener this music offers an extraordinary richness o f possible


meanings. For the music analyst such richness offers an enticing and impressive

challenge.

Of the three composers, it is Berg whose music is most associated with the rich

confluence o f tonality and atonality, for almost all his works are thought to be

marked by this confluence. Over the past two decades an enormous amount of

scrutiny has been focused on Berg’s music. The Berg centenary in 1985, the new

availability o f manuscript materials, the completion of Lulu, the news about the

composer’s private life and private musical symbols—these have all fuelled an

explosion of Berg studies. This scholarly attention has helped to reveal not only

Berg’s well known fondness for common-practice tonal references but also just

how accomplished was his handling of newer pitch resources. The lion’s share of

this attention, however, has been paid to Berg’s later masterpieces. Less regard has

been given to the composer’s early music, despite clear indications that it was here

that Berg developed procedures and materials he was to favour right up to his last

works.

It is especially surprising that Berg’s Four Songs, Op. 2, have seldom been the

object of detailed analysis—surprising because these songs apparently stand right

at the borders of tonality and atonality. As mentioned, the first three songs are

usually held to be at least marginally tonal, however much they betray a “radical

questioning o f the traditional concept of a tonal center” (Perle 1980b, 4). The last

song, meanwhile, is accepted as “Berg’s first definitively ‘atonal’ piece” (Perle

1980a, 525). Berg himself even made such a distinction. When he sought

Schoenberg’s advice on which of the songs he should send to Wassily Kandinsky

for inclusion in the 1912 Blaue Reiter almanac, he asked, “Would you recommend,

in case you recall it, the last one, which is ‘very modem’ or one of the first, which

still bear traces of tonality?” (undated letter [30 September 1912] to Arnold

Schoenberg; translated in Brand, Hailey, and Harris 1987, 23). Except for a few


familiar passages, however, these songs have been rather slighted in the recent

flowering of Berg analysis.1

The present thesis is a detailed analytical study o f Berg’s Four Songs. My

immediate purpose is to explore within these songs the workings of pitch materials

and relationships at the boundaries o f tonality and atonality. My underlying

purpose is to probe these two categories, as they are variously construed and as

they might usefully be construed by those beguiled into analyzing this

“transitional” music. I shall therefore consider, in the second chapter o f this thesis,

the meanings of “tonality” and “atonality.” I shall then address issues o f analytical

method. Such issues have been pre-eminent in recent studies of the late-tonal,

early-atonal repertory—many o f which studies have focused on the Second

Viennese School. In particular, I shall consider the roles that harmonic theory,

Schoenberg’s ideas about harmony, Schenkerian analysis, and pitch-class set

analysis might play in analyzing this music. This second chapter will then form the

theoretical basis for the analyses I present in subsequent chapters.

These subsequent chapters are six: one (Chapter 3) to consider the Op. 2 songs

as a whole, four (Chapters 4 to 7) to examine each o f the songs in detail, and a

final one (Chapter S) to embrace my conclusions. Berg seems to have meant the

Four Songs to form a cycle; they certainly exhibit some cyclic features. More

important for my present study, the songs share a limited stock of pitch-structural

materials and procedures. I shall introduce and characterize these elements in

Chapter 3. In the subsequent chapters, I shall examine the songs individually, but

1 Since Craig Ayrey's (1982) study of the second song, it has become something of a favourite in analysis pedagogy: see, for example, Burkhardt 1986, S28-529; Straus 1990a, 84-88; Metz 1991; also Morgan 1991b, 85-86. Some general texts also mention the fourth song, especially the often quoted passage in mm. 20-22: see, for example, Simms 1986b, 67; 1993, 124; Watkins 1988, 49-50; Kostka 1990, 75-76. The only published sources addressing aT four songs in detail, however, are articles by Wennerstrom (1977) and Kett (1991).


not in the sequence in which they appear in the score. Rather I shall begin with

Song 3, then progress to Song 2, to Song 1, and finally to Song 4. As it turns out,

this may be the order in which the songs were composed. That fact is not,

however, of direct relevance to my order of presentation. Instead a practical reason

guides this order: it allows me most readily to build some aspects of each analysis

on that which has gone before.

This cumulative sequence of analysis might indeed mirror a development in

Berg’s compositional style or skill, and might therefore reflect back on the question

of the songs’ chronology. I do not think, however, that the analytical evidence

could be decisive here. In any case, historical questions are not of chief concern

in this thesis. Nor do I trouble myself with a manuscript or sketch study of the

Four Songs It is, in fact, because such issues are not the main focus of this thesis

that I wish to summarize them now. In the balance of the present chapter I shall

therefore consider very briefly the personal background o f Berg’s Op. 2 as well as

questions about the dating, m a :uscnpt sources, and publication of the songs.

Historical Background

In the summer o f 1908 Alban Berg was twenty-three years old, and much of

his personal life revolved around two people.

The first was Arnold Schoenberg, whose pupil Berg had been since the fall of

1904. By mid-1907 he had completed Schoenberg’s course in harmony and

counterpoint, and his efforts since then had been in free composition (Camer

1983, 12). On Schoenberg’s testimony much of his efforts had been directed at

teaching Berg to compose something besides songs. Writing to Emil Hertzka (the

founder o f Universal Edition) in 1910, Schoenberg observed o f his pupils Berg and

Erwin Stein,


6

What I have achieved with these two in particular could so easily be convincing. One (Alban Berg) is an extraordinarily gifted composer. But the state he was in when he came to me was such that his imagination apparently could not work on anything but Lieder. Even the piano accompaniments to them were song-like in style. He was absolutely incapable of writing an instrumental movement or inventing an instrumental theme. You can hardly imagine the lengths to which I went in order to remove this defect in his talent. (Quoted in Camer 1983, 10-11)

Berg had already, by 1908, much indulged his single-minded talent for song

composition. Even before coming to Schoenberg the teenage Berg had penned, in

sometimes crude notation, about thirty-five settings. He had composed another

forty-five or so during his first years of study with Schoenberg (Reich 1965, 109).2

Schoenberg’s efforts had also, however, begun to pay o ff . As part of his training

in free composition, Berg had tried his hand at instrumental movements, mostly

unfinished essays in writing for string quartet and for piano. Two of his completed*>

works had been performed at concerts of Schoenberg’s pupils. In addition, Berg

had finished a pair of single-movement piano “sonatas” (leaving several others

incomplete); one of the pair was to be published in 1910 as his Op 1 (see Hilmar

1984, 15-29).

By 1908 the second centre of gravity in Berg’s life was Helene Nahowski,

whom he had met early the previous year and whom he was passionately

courting—despite her family’s opposition and at least one rival suitor. His early

2Except for the songs Berg revised in 1928 and published as Seven Early Songs, and the first version of “Schliesse mir die Augen beide,” published in the Berlin magazine Die Musik in 1930, these early settings remained unpublished during Berg’s lifetime. The manuscripts are preserved in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Chadwick 1971, 123-125; Hilmar 1981,43-45). Forty-six of these songs have been published, in two volumes, under the title Jugendlieder (ed. Christopher Hailey, Vienna. Universal, 1985).

3They were a fugue for string quintet and piano (1907; performed, along with three songs, in November of that year) and a set of piano variations (1907-08; performed in November 1908).


7

letters to her (mostly written during summers at the Bergs’ cottage) are full not

only of his passion, but also of complaints of almost constant ill health, which he

combatted with an alarming variety of drugs. Berg suffered most from asthma,

which gave him many sleepless nights—so that sleep, as a refuge from physical

and emotional torment, is something of a Leitmotiv in his letters:

. . . I think Peter [the poet Peter Altenberg] is right in saying, sleep’s a cure- all, however you bring it on—by real tiredness, veronal or alcohol. Just to sleep is everything. (Undated letter [Spring 1911] to Helene Nahowski; translated in Berg 1971, 122)

Berg’s published letters to Helene between 1908 and 1910 fail to mention that he

was also setting to music some poems pervaded by images of sleep: the refuge of

dreamless sleep, sleep afflicted by restless, violent, or fevered dreams. The four

poems he chose are not by Altenberg: three are by a less celebrated contemporary,

Alfred Mombert, and one is by the great Romantic dramatist and poet Friedrich

Hebbel.

If in setting these poems Berg was venting a personal anguish, he was also

approaching the end of his young career as a Liederkomponist. After publishing the

four settings as Op. 2 1910, Berg returned only twice to the song form: in

1912-13 in his Op. 4 Altenberg settings, and in 1925 in his second setting of

“Schliesse mir die Augen beide ”

The Dates, Manuscripts, and Published Editions of the Four Songs

Berg was seldom careful about dating his early works, so the dates o f most of

them, including the Op. 2 songs, are uncertain. To be sure, Berg did leave at least

a retrospective dating. In 1927 Hermann Watznauer, a long-time family friend,

began a biographical sketch o f the (by now famous) composer. As part o f this

project Watznauer prepared a dated list of Berg’s early songs, a list corrected by


Berg himself.4 In this list the Op. 2 songs are dated 1908-09, a date presumably

representing the composer’s own remembrance. It is not a remembrance trusted by

Berg’s later biographers, almost all of whom date the songs to 1909-1910.5 Only

Willi Reich (who at least knew Berg personally) holds that the songs were

“composed in the summer o f 1908” (Reich 1965, 112). Presumably most reliable

are Stephen Kett (1989) and Jody Rockmaker (1990), both of whom have

examined the surviving sketch materials for these songs m the Austrian National

Library in Vienna. Both conclude that Berg began the songs, as Reich says, in the

summer of 1908, but worked on them until early 1910. They agree also that Berg

first composed Songs 2 and 3,6 then Song 1, and finally (while sketching the Op. 3

String Quartet) Song 4 (Kett 1989, 69; Rockmaker 1990).

Although the Austrian National Library holds sketch materials and drafts o f the

Four Songs,7 it does not hold the complete autograph score. This is listed by some

sources as lost (Redlich 1957, 290; Camer 1983, 298), however, Jarman

(1979, 242) and Hilmar (1978, 33 n.12) place it in the possession of Berg’s pupil

Fritz Heinrich Klein in Graz. Klein died in 1977, so this autograph score again

needs tracking down

Berg published the Four Songs and the Op. 1 Piano Sonata at his own expense

in 1910 with the firm of Robert Lienau, Berlin (Hilmar 1981, 48 no. 139). (The

4Watznauer’s biographical sketch, previously in manuscript, has been published with annotations in Der umerbesserliche Romantiker: Alban Berg 1885-1935 by the composer’s nephew, Erich Alban Berg (1985, 9-117). Two pages from the song-list are also photo-reproduced in this source (152-153).

5See Redlich 1957, 290 (but also 40, 300); Erich Alban Berg 1976, 249; 1985, 194; Perle 1980b, 2-3; Camer 1983, 98.

^Rockmaker judges on stylistic grounds—there are no surviving sketches for Song 2—that Song 3 predates Song 2 (Rockmaker 1990, 4).

7See Hilmar 1981, 45, 48-49, 75


works were also taken into the Universal Edition catalogue.) He designed

Jugendstil lettering for the covers of both works, and both were dedicated to

Helene Nahowski. In 1920 Berg financed a republication of the songs (together

with Opp. 1, 3 and 5) in a “corrected” version and with the dedication removed

(Hilmar 1981, 48 no. 140). This second edition was reprinted in 1928 (Hilmar

1981, 49 no. 141). Meanwhile the fourth song had appeared on its own (along with

submissions by Schoenberg and Webern) in the Blaue Reiter publication

(Kandinsky and Marc 1912,238-239): after seeking his teacher’s opinion, Berg had

decided to recommend to Kandinsky the song which was “‘very modem’” over

those which “still bear traces of tonality.”


CHAPTER 2

TONAL AND ATONAL THEORIES AND BERG’S PITCH STRUCTURES

This [pre-twelve-tone] music has been given the dreadful name “atonal music.” Schoenberg gets a lot of fun out of this, since “atonal” means “without notes”; but that’s meaningless. What’s meant is music in no definite key. What has been given up? The key has disappeared! (Webern 1963, 42)

When Berg sought Schoenberg’s advice about his Blaue Reiter submis

sion—one of the very few times he even mentioned ms Op. 2 settings in

writing—it was, strikingly, the songs’ tonality on which he remarked. On the

written evidence, in fact, there were few composers for whom tonality and its

disappearance were such conscious preoccupations as they were for Schoenberg

and his two famous pupils. Berg and Webern inherited Schoenberg’s view of a

historically inevitable “break-up of tonality”—but equally acquired Schoenberg’s

abhorrence of the term usually applied to the result: “atonality.” The apparent

inconsistency here suggests that the first task to be faced in theorizing about music

allegedly on the borderline between tonality and atonality is that of deciding just

what these two terms mean.

What Might Tonality (and Atonality) Be?

In his article “Tonality” in The New Grove, Carl Dahlhaus records no less than

seven separate meanings for the terms “tonal” and “tonality” (Dahlhaus 1980, 52).

There is little point, therefore, in asking what tonality is, what is its proper

10


11

definition. Indispensable as the word may have become, it has simply acquired too

many shades of meaning to be tethered exclusively, or prescriptively, to any one

of them Further confounding matters, many writers who analyze early twentieth-

century music use the terms “tonal" and “tonality." and their antonyms, without

making clear just how they understand these terms

This clutter of meanings is confusing, but it actually simplifies my present task

Faced with the impossibility of arriving at the definition of "tonality," I may

instead embrace a definition I need not defend a claim that my use of the term is

the sole correct one, only the claim that my choice is logical and suitable to my

purpose But which definition0 It will seem that I make my choice, and my defense

of it, circuitously The stops on my circuit, however, will later prove to have been

useful

Schoenberg's Definitions

Given Berg's comments on the "traces o f tonality” borne by three of his Four

Songs, his own understanding of the word might seem to provide a natural model.

As luck would have it. Berg never spelled out what he meant, in this context, by

"tonality ” Schoenberg did. however, and such was his influence over Berg that it

would be startling if Schoenberg’s thoughts on tonality were not substantially

echoed by Berg (as they obviously were by Webern).

Schoenberg defines tonality most clearly (though with typical prolixity) in his

essay "Problems of Harmony.” written in 1934

Now then, since tonality is not something which the -omposer unconsciously achieves, which exists without his contribution and grows of itself, which would be present even if the composer willed the opposite; since, in a word, tonality is neither a natural nor automatic consequence c. tone combination and therefore cannot claim to be the automatic result of the nature of sound and so an indispensable attribute of every piece of music, we shall probably have to define tonality as the art of combining


12

tones in such successions and such harmonies or successions of harmonies, that the relation of all events to a fundamental tone is made possible. (Schoenberg 1975. 275-276)

Schoenberg’s base requirement for tonality is the same simple one we have already

learned from Webern: ‘ the relation of all events to a fundamental tone " The above

passage, however, leaves much unsaid about Schoenberg's views on tonality, and

it is worth probing these views more deeply

Schoenberg most fully develops his tonal theory in his Harmonielehre (1911) 1

This book presumably embodies the harmonic instruction Berg had received a few

years previously, and Schoenberg was actually beginning to assemble the book as

Berg was finishing his Four Songs. As presented in Harmonielehre. Schoenberg's

ideas on tonality are strongly marked by a dichotomy between innovative and

conservative elements

As we have seen, Schoenberg holds that tonality is neither a necessary nor an

eternally unchanging property of music. It emerges only artificially from the

composer's manipulation o f pitch material This is a bold view, quite at odds with

the one held commonly by Schoenberg’s contemporaries On the other hand.

Schoenberg ties tonality not just to harmony but to a strongly functional view of

harmony that lies clearly in the Viennese tradition of harmonic theory The

mediating factor here between the innovative and the traditional is Schoenberg’s

view of the historical evolution of tonal harmony Tonality, maintains Schoenberg,

is expressed dynamically and thus creates the possibility of its own dissolution

Every chord, then, that is set beside the principal tone has at least as much tendency to lead away from it as to retui, to it. And if life, if a work of art is to emerge, then we must engage in this movement-generating conflict

Schoenberg 1922; 1978. The other principal source of Schoenberg's tonal theory is his Structural Functions of Harmony, finished in 1948 (Schoenberg 1969)


13

The tonality must be placed in danger of losing its sovereignty; the appetites for independence and the tendencies toward mutiny must be given opportunity to activate themselves; one must grant them their victories, not begrudging them an occasional expansion of territory. For a ruler can only take pleasure in ruling live subjects, and live subjects will attack and plunder (Schoenberg 1978, 151)

In traditional tonality the rebellious forces were overcome by the centralizing

pow~r of the tome Over time, however, the strength of the mutinous agents in

tonal music has been growing By Schoenberg’s own day—and certainly in

Schoenberg’s own music—their ultimate defeat, their subordination to the tonic,

is often far from assured.

Schoenberg the progressive confidently accepts this process as predestined. In

Harmonielehre he describes steadily more advanced harmonic materials, those

which push to the "frontiers of tonality” (Schoenberg 1978, 238) and beyond, and

he argues for their harmonic self-sufficiency At the same time, Schoenberg the

conservative always seeks legitimizing explanations for these advanced materials,

stressing their deriv^'.ion from common-practice chords, trying to accommodate

ever more disse.iant and chromatic sonorities within a functional harmonic system

grounded in consonance and diatonicism.

The tension between the progressive and the conservative increases as

Harmonielehre proceeds. At last, having failed to devise a new functional theory,

based on chromatic scale steps, which could encompass all vertical sonorities,2

Schoenberg resorts to a more desperate measure: he redefines tonality

Everything implied by a series of tones (Tonreihe) constitutes tonality, whether it be brought together by means of direct reference to a single fundamental or by more complicated connections. . . . A piece of music will

2See Schoenberg 1978, 234, 247, 330, and especially 387-389. The last passage was added to Harmonielehre for the 1922 revised edition.


14

always have to be tonal, at least in so far as a relation has to exist from tone to tone by virtue of which the tones, placed next to or above one another, yield a perceptible continuity. The tonality [itself] may then perhaps be neither perceptible nor provable; these relations may be obscure and difficult to comprehend, even incomprehensible. Nevertheless, to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary (Schoenberg 1978, 432)

Hence the contradiction with which we began this chapter: tonality (as Schoenberg

initially defines it) is bound for dissolution, yet atonality is impossible (according

to the second definition) This contradiction is one Schoenberg never rerolved, and

it is a problem to which we shall return.

Schenker’s Definition

A more precise and restrictive concept of tonality was developed by

Schoenberg’s Viennese contemporary Heinrich Schenker. For Schenker the

operations of tonality are both natural and subject to eternal laws: tonality is the

projection in time o f the nature-given tonic triad. Schenker specified, with precision

and consistency, the multi-level mechanisms for this projection These are

controlled at the deepest, background, level through the treble unfolding and bass

arpeggiation that comprise the Schenkerian Ursatz 3

This is the paradigm of tonal structure Schenker develops in his mature treatise, Der Freie Satz. It is not, strictly speaking, his definition of the word “tonality .” Schenker gives his slightly idiosyncratic definition in the following passages from Der Freie Satz

“I call the content of the fundamental line, counterpointed by the bass arpeggiation, diatony (Diatonie) This is the fundamental, determinate melodic succession, the primal design of melodic content. In contrast, tonality, in the foreground, represents the sum of all occurrences, from the smallest to the most comprehensive—including illusory keys and all the various musical forms.” (Schenker 1979, 1:5)“In the narrowest sense, diatony belongs only to the upper voice. But, in accord with its origin, it simultaneously governs the whole contrapuntal structure, including the bass arpeggiation and the passing tones. . . . I have used the term tonality to include the various illusory effects in the foreground; yet the tonal


15

The explanatory power of Schenker’s theory has been widely recognized;

Schenkerian analysis is at present the favoured approach for explaining pitch

structure in common-practice western art music. Moreover several theorists have

attempted to extend the reach of Schenker’s concepts to music of the early

twentieth century (something Schenker’s bias against the music never permitted

him to do). Some have used Schenkerian tools to probe what they feel are the

more common-practice aspects of this music.4 Others have modified the tools

themselves to accommodate the innovations of twentieth-century styles.5 The

success of these ventures, especially those of the second group, has been decidedly

mixed. It turns out that the power and precision of Schenkerian ideas hinge on the

base requirements they make of the musical language in order for a “Schenkerian

tonality” to exist. The requirements go beyond Schoenberg’s.

1. That the diatonic scale is the only primary pitch series, to which chromatic

tones are always ancillary

2. That harmony is tertian and primarily tnadic, with even seventh chords as

unstable elements.

3. That ic 5 is the most important relational interval class between harmonies.

These prerequisites, in turn, permit some more advanced requirements for

Schenkerian tonality, ones recently outlined by Joseph N. Straus: a clear distinction

between consonance and dissonance, a systematic hierarchy among harmonies, a

limited number of standard prolongational types, and an obvious distinction

between harmony and voice-leading (Straus 1987, 2-7).

sparseness of diatony in the background and the fullness of tonality in the foreground are one and the same.” (Schenker 1979, 1:11)

4See, for example, Forte 1978; Baker 1983, 1986; Parks 1989; Schmalfeldt 1991.

5See, for example, Salzer 1952; Travis 1959, 1966; Cinnamon 1984; Larson 1987; Forte 1988; Baker 1990; Pearsall 1991.


16

These conditions are generally met by common-practice music, but they are

seldom all met by music o f Schoenberg’s time. Accordingly most early twentieth-

century music is not, in Schenker’s light, tonal. Straus implies as much when he

later makes a distinction between “tonal” and “centric.”

Because a piece is not tonal, however, does not mean it can’t have pitch or pitch-class centers. All tonal music is centric, focussed on specific pitch classes or triads, but not all centric music is tonal. Even without the resources of tonality, music can be organized around referential centers. (Straus 1990, 89-91)

Straus’s discrimination between “tonal” and “centric” helps caution those who

would warp Schenkerian ideas too far in having them encompass music for which

they were not originally developed. For Straus, however, “centric” is a branch of

“post-tonal” (for which we can read “atonal”)6. There is an implied gulf, a clean

break, between music which is wholly amenable to Schenkerian interpretation

(“tonal” music) and that which is not (“atonal” music). In contrast, we recall how

Webern was at pains to stress that “it’s impossible to fix a dividing line between

old and new.” It is this perception o f continuity, rather than Straus’s sense of

difference, which 1 wish to underscore in my analysis of Berg’s Four Songs. For

my purpose, therefore, a markedly more inclusive conception of tonality would be

more appropriate.

6James M. Baker has recently adopted the term “post-tonal” to refer to . . music in which structure is based on extensions or modifications of conventional tonal procedures,” a definition which “excludes music which is strictly atonal” (Baker 1993, 20). Here “post-tonal” becomes equivalent to Baker’s earlier term “transitional” (Baker 1983, 168).

7ln his 1949 essay “My Evolution,” Schoenberg makes the same point when discussing the music he wrote in the years around 1908 (Schoenberg 1975, 86-87).


17

Broader Definitions

A few theorists have recently developed variants of such a conception. Wallace

Berry, for example, proposes the following.

Tonality may be thus broadly conceived as a formal system in which pitch content is perceived as functionally related to a specific pitch-class or pitch- class-complex o f resolution, often preestablished and preconditioned, as a basis for structure at some understood level o f perception [italics in original]. . . . The tonal system consists o f a hierarchic ordering o f PC factors, with the tonic (final, axis, center, etc.) the ultimate point of relationship which tonal successions ar? contrived to “expect.” In the tonal period of conventional “common practice” the primary system consists of hierarchically oriented degrees of the diatonic scale and the tertian harmonies erected on these degrees. . . . In more recent styles in which tonality is relevant a system may (but need not) consist of specific scalar formulations (PC collections) of these or other kinds, with derivative melodic and harmonic configurations disposed in such a way as to express and give primacy to a particular “tonic” or, in fluctuant contexts, particular “tonics.” (Berry 1976, 27-28)

If Berry's definition seems little wider in scope than Schoenberg’s initial one, it

is at least no longer tied to common-practice harmonic norms. A “tonic” or even

“tonics” may be projected by means other than those of traditionally functional

harmony. Additionally Berry’s phrase . . structure at some understood level of

perception” implies that there may be many such levels. Tonality need not always,

or only, encompass an entire piece.

In his study of the music of Claude Debussy, Richard S. Parks has chosen to

extend the boundaries o f tonality still further.

. . . I use the term tonality to describe pitch materials, processes, and contexts that project into prominence one or more pcs to a significantly greater extent than (or at the expense of) other pcs. I assume that tonality is a property that arises from a composition’s internal conditions, though external factors may facilitate its recognition (such as cognitive habits


18

acquired through experience with the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tonal repertoire). (Parks 1989, 3)

I believe Parks’s definition finaib' opens the door to a conception of tonality

appropriate to my present study. Any privileging of one or more pcs above

others—whether achieved through common-practice harmony and voice-leading,

through newer means (as in Straus’s “centric” music), or indeed through a

combination of the two—might be considered an example of tonality

Two questions immediately spring to mind. First: is this not simply

Schoenberg’s final, desperate, definition repackaged? Second: what, if anything,

might atonality be? Both questions can be (perhaps must be) answered together.

In the view I wish to adopt, tonality and atonality need not be regarded as

exclusive properties of different pieces: this piece is tonal, that one is atonal.

Rather, from the contimuum of meanings generated by pitches and intervals, I wish

to construe tonality and atonality as alternative contexts in which to experience

pieces. Contexts in which we are primarily concerned with specific pc content are

tonal contexts. Such a concern only makes sense when we feel that a pc or pcs are

being consistently privileged, made salient above others. Exploring the tonality of

a piece will involve addressing this salience, how it is achieved; the levels at

which, and the degree to which, projected pcs are focal or stable, and the

correlation of pc salience with formal design.

Atonal contexts are those in which we are not primarily concerned with the

specific pc content of pitch collections but rather with the only other pitch-related

content they possess: intervallic content. The chief way in which a pitch collection

might manifest such an atonal structural property is through its set-class

membership, since pc set-class relations are grounded in interval-class content,

rather than pitch-class content. We may wish, then, to point out that a certain pitch

collection is related to another as a transpositional and/or inversional pc set


19

equivalent, as a member of a subset or superset class, or perhaps as a member of

a complementary or similar set class.8 There are other ways in which atonal

structure may be displayed by pitch collections. Collections may be variants of the

same musical motive, for instance (in which case aspects of specific shape and

ordered interval content might lead us to consider more than just pc set-class

membership). Or, as we shall see in Berg’s Four Songs, interval succession by

itself may be subjected to patterning and design.9

It should now be evident that the above conception of tonality is not the same

as that presented in Schoenberg’s final definition. Schoenberg could not say, at the

end of Harmonielehre, how a piece could be tonal. He could only state his belief

that some kind of tonality must always be present—and he could express his

revulsion at “atonality,” a term he felt to be both absurd and pejorative.10 Such

sentiments open no analytic avenues. I believe that, by contrast, the conception of

tonality and atonality I have adopted above may help me to address the richness

of structural relations I sense in Berg’s music and the perception of continuity

between the “old” and the “new” in this music.

8The essential bases for set-class relations are explored in Forte 1973, the principal theoretical treatise on pc set classes.

9The notion of co-existing tonal and atonal contexts is also one earlier posited by Parks (1985, 34-35). The features of tonal contexts Parks lists in this source are more oriented toward common-practice tonality than is the case in the present study (and, indeed, in Parks’s later study of Debussy’s music [1989]). Baker also appears to recognize contexts, in some way, when he writes as follows. “It is my conviction that the important question concerning a composition on the borderline between tonality and atonality is not. Is it tonal or atonal? Rather, one must ask: In what way is this piece tonal? To what extent and how do atonal procedures also determine its structure?” (Baker 1983, 168) Baker’s criteria for “tonal,” however, are essentially Schenkerian.

l0This is also the burden of Berg’s arguments against the term in his radio discussion “What is Atonality” (Berg 1930): that it is (or was then) chiefly a term of abuse used against his music and that of his colleagues.


2 0

Two Kinds of Tonality

It is still possible to assert that there are two kinds o f tonal pitch structures in

early twentieth-century music. There are those grounded in the common-practice

conventions of functional harmony and voice-leading—structures that Schenker

might have recognized as toned. Then there are structures that produce pc salience

in newer ways, using pitch collections and relations no longer typical of traditional

tonality. Keeping in mind a distinction between these two kinds of tonality will

have its uses. Even more useful, however, will be subsuming both under the

umbrella term “tonality,” for—at leasi in Berg’s Four Songs—the line between

them appears very blurred indeed. As we shall see, the same pcs which are

projected in traditional ways can also be projected m newer ways. The same pc

collection types which have, in one context, traditional tonal functions can, in

another, be vested with newer tonal (as well as atonal) meanings. Clearly the

transition from common-practice tonal relations to newer ones only partly involves

the use of new pc materials. Just as important is the gradual recognition and

exploitation of new properties in old materials.

A single example may serve to make concrete this last point. Example 2-1

presents six stages in the transformation of a dominant-function harmony.11 The

chords in the first five stages are each resolved to a clear tonic harmony. The

functional status of chord 1, a straightforward V7 harmony, is obvious. In chords1 72 and 3, this harmony is altered by chromatically lowering, then raising, its 5th.

1]This example was suggested by a passage in Dahlhaus's article “Tonality” in The New Grove (Dahlhaus 1980, 54), as well as by Schoenberg’s discussion of whole-tone materials in Harmonielehre (Schoenberg 1978, 390-398)

12Chord 2 is one of the “vagrant” chords Schoenberg discusses in Harmonielehre. There he presents a resolution analogous to mine: of II7/k5/*3 to V (Schoenberg 1978, 255, example 189/). Among other resolutions he cities for this harmony is that which treats it as a French augmented-sixth chord (255, example 189J). Schoenberg later illustrates an inversion of my chord 3, with its resolution to 1 (355, example 288).


Example 2-1. Transformations o f dominant-function harmonies.

I p p = j1

mil- -- ......« ■■

2

" S-- -------

3

. — m.— # ------------- ■-------------

^ *4

1 k — * —

& ♦

— • -------------------------------

6

9 » • «L---------------- m ------------------------------1 ■ * = ^ = r r .

— m— ------------------------1 -------

— • -------------------------------* - ,J......

— m -------------------------------

4-27 4-25 4-24 5-33 6-35 6-35 3-12111.2,5,7| |11,1,5,7| [3,5,7,111 [3,5,7,*),111 [1,3,5,7,9,111 [1,3,5,7,9,11] [0,4,81

& >l if i t •C: V I V I V I V I V I (I)

The addition of a 9th to chord 3 yields chord 4,13 and the main process of

transformation is complete when both raised and lowered 5ths are employed in

chord 5 14 Chord 5 is not just a (by now attenuated) dominant harmony, however;

it is also a whole-tone hexachord. Chord 6 strengthens this second interpretation

while presumably destroying the first. It is invariant in pc content with chord 5,

but, eschewing a root-projecting leap in the bass, it now executes a symmetrical

linear movement to another whole-tone harmony, an augmented triad.15 Even this

final chord might, o f course, be viewed as an altered tonic harmony. Conversely

the dominant chords as far back as chord 2 are also whole-tone sonorities, a fact

pointed up by their set-class labelling and pc inventories. All of these whole-tone

sonorities have symmetrical properties. In the right circumstances, even chord 1

might function as an “almost-whole-tone” collection—an adjunct of the whole-tone

world rather than a staple common-practice harmony.

13See Schoenberg 1978, 391, example 320.

14o oenberg 1978, 392, example 322.

15Compare Schoenberg 1978, 397, example 327d.


22

As we transform chord 1 into chord 6, a series of qualitative changes gradually

takes hold:

1. from a diatonic background pitch series to a chromatic one, and hence from

properties derived from the asymmetries of the former to properties exploiting

symmetrical divisions o f the latter;

2. from tertian harmony to harmony based (or baseable) on ic 2, and

3. from harmonic relationships grounded in root movement to ones mediated

principally by semitonal voice-leading.

At what point does the first set o f qualities yield to the second? It is impossible to

say. The process is not one of sudden shift but one of altering balances and dual

possibilities.

The above example is apt not only because Schoenberg derives the whole-tone

sonorities in just this way and recognizes the duality o f meaning they embody. It

is also pertinent because whole-tone collections appear in all of Berg's Four Songs

and play crucial roles in three o f them. Even apart from whole-tone collections,

most of the pitch materials Berg employs are traceable to those of common-

practice tonality. In Berg’s use of them, however, their traditional functions are

often ambiguous, their alternative structural possibilities cast into relief.

A distinction sometimes made between common-practice pitch relations and

newer ones is that the former have systemic functional meanings, ones extrinsic to

any particular piece. The latter, conversely, have only contextually determined

meanings. This distinction is not wholly accurate. The search for new musical

materials with systemic properties, for instance, seems to have been a driving force

in the popularity of symmetrical constructs—including the whole-tone

collections—in much early twentieth-century music. Conversely it is the case that

all pitch relations fmd themselves “in context,” that our judgements about the


23

meanings o f pitch relations in actual pieces are influenced by the rhythmic,

textural, and formal settings in which these relations play themselves out.

When Berg noted his songs’ “traces o f tonality,” he presumably understood

something more traditional by the word “tonality” than the meaning I am adopting.

So also, presumably, do most theorists who analyze early twentieth-century music.

I think it a worthy reproach that my chosen definitions do not have the weight of

common usage behind them. I sense, however, that the dilemma in which Berg’s

teacher found himself in Harmonielehre—perceiving the historical development of

harmonic relations and their seamless progress to their (then) present state—that

this dilemma is one my chosen definition begins to solve.

Analyzing Berg’s Tonality and Atonality

Early twentieth-century music is a problematic repertory for music analysis.

Almost since they were published, the works of Schoenberg and his contemporaries

have engendered uncertainty and debate about how best to understand their logic

(and about whether they have a consistent logic to understand). In studies o f this

music—especially, it seems, the pre-twelve-tone works of Schoenberg—questions

of analytic approach have often loomed as large as those about the nature of the

music itself.16 The underlying problem is that the music seems so “transitional” :

tied to the common-practice tonal past in many ways, flouting past conventions in

other ways. Is there any one set of analytic tools capable of doing justice to the

richness and obscurity of structural meaning this music embodies?

16Recent studies of analytic method in relation to Schoenberg’s music include Wintle 1980; Forte 1981; Ogden 1981; Cinnamon 1984; Larson 1987; Lewis 1987; and Baker 1990.


2 4

The present consensus seems to be that there is no such single set of tools, and

several recent studies have been multi-pronged in their approaches.17 My analysis

- of the pitch materials in Berg’s Four Songs follows this recent trend. I draw my

analytical concepts from three sources: harmonic theory (including Schoenberg’s

version o f it), Schenkerian theory, and pitch-class set theory. The use I make of

each of these— and the problems associated with each—are worth considering in

some detail.

Harmonic Theory

Although there are certainly contrapuntal elements and closely worked motivic

designs in these songs, their basic texture is homophonic. Not surprisingly, then,

analysis o f harmonic vocabulary and grammar is an important feature of my study.

One o f my main tasks here is to assess Berg’s harmonies and their progressions

against common-practice harmonic norms. The concepts I use are those familiar

from harmony class: chord function, chord disposition and intra-chord voice151leading, and chord progression and inter-chord voice leading. If the results of

applying such concepts may be summed up in a single word, it is “ambiguity.” The

functional relationships the above concepts are meant to illuminate are certainly

perceivable—especial!/ in the first three songs—but they are often attenuated and

equivocal. I suspect that such ambiguity was deliberate on Berg’s part.

It is at this point that Schoenberg’s harmonic theory can be useful.

Schoenberg’s teaching formed an obvious source for the harmonic vocabulary Berg

employed in his Four Songs. One can easily point to the passages in

17Among large-scale studies, see, for example, Baker 1986 (on Scriabin); Parks 1989 (on Debussy); and Wilson 1992 (on Bartok). See also Dunsby 1993, in which several analytical models for early twentieth-century music are discussed and illustrated.

lsThe terminology and analytical notation I use will generally conform to that found in Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading (1989).


25

Harmonielehre relevant to most o f the chords Berg used. Beyond this, Schoenberg

can also be suggestive about the possible structural meanings o f Berg's harmonies.

Here caution must certainly be exercised. Schoenberg's freedom in assigning

traditional functions to highly modified chords and the internal inconsistencies in

his theory (upon which we have already touched) may make him unreliable as the

sole or chief guide to common-practice harmony. On the other hand, even

Schoenberg’s inconsistencies are instructive. They partly stem, after all, from

Schoenberg’s apprehension o f both the common-practice derivations o f advanced

harmonies and the alternative properties these same harmonies embody.

Schoenberg’s attempt to confront the ambiguity o f contemporary harmony offers

one of the best clues we have to how Berg’s chords might function.19

Schenkerian Theory

The persuasiveness of Schenkerian theory lies in its strongly linear model o f

structure, an intuitively attractive view o f music unfolding universal designs in

time. The controlling force in this model is embodied in the Ursatz paradigms. The

theory’s appeal lies also in its power to tie small- and large-scale pitch structures

into a coherent whole, making objective and specific the bonds among structural

levels. The unifying force here is prolongation. Together the Ursatz and the

19In his study of the analytical value of Schoenberg's harmonic theory, Christopher Wintle concurs.

“1 suggest that while the Harmonielehre may not very usefully be used—as Schenker’s harmony book certainly may—as an analytical tool as far as a great deal of the eighteenth and nineteenth century musical literature is concerned, it is much more helpfully understood as a precompositional resume of tonal harmonic practice; presented very much in terms of early twentieth century needs, and one that forms an indispensable backdrop to the introduction into Schoenberg’s music of the time of those novel, “nontonal” features discussed in its last three of four chapters. In other words, the main interest here—as also in die music—lies in the integration of the old with the new, and not just in the old or the new considered independently.” (Wintle 1980, 51)


26

concept of prolongation form the backbone of Schenkerian theory and o f its

success.

It is now usually assumed or discovered that Schenker’s Ursdtze cannot be held

to govern the backgrounds of much early twentieth-century music. Does

prolongation nonetheless exist in this music? This has become the crucial question

in the debate about whether Schenkenan analysis can aid our understanding of the

music of Schoenberg and his contemporaries. Joseph N. Straus’s essay “The

Problem of Prolongation in Post-Tonal Music" (1987) has been a watershed study

in the debate.20 Straus’s requirements for “Schenkenan tonality,” which I have

already listed, are more precisely requirements for Schenkenan prolongation As

Straus explains it, the conventions o f the common-practice musical language allow

us to judge pitch hierarchies systematically and on the basis of pitch values alone

They allow us not only consistently to specify which pitches are being

prolonged—structurally active even when not literally present—but also how

subordinate pitches are indeed prolongational. If these conventions no longer

govern the musical language, one should not claim prolongation but a less forceful

type of pitch relationship.

If we wish to discuss middleground structure in post-tonal music, we will have to retreat to a less comprehensive but more defensible model o f voice- leading, one based on association rather than prolongation. Associational claims differ significantly from prolongational claims. Given thre<* musical events, X, Y, and Z, an associational model is content merely to as vert some kind of connection between X and Z without commenting one way or another about Y. Assertions o f this type are relatively easy to justify and provide the only reliable basis for describing post-tonal middlegrounds

20Straus’s study was preceded by James M. Baker’s “Schenkerian Analysis and Post- Tonal Music” (1983). Like Straus, Baker surveys earlier Schenker-inspired studies of the “post-tonal” repertoire and finds that their uncritical dilution of Schenkerian concepts usually renders their analyses overly intuitive and weakly defensible. For an even earlier allusion to the problem ,»f “dissonant prolongation,” see Benjamin 1977, 52


27

Musical tones separated in time may be associated by a variety of contextual means, including register, timbre, metrical placement, dynamics, and articulation. Associations of this kind draw togetherelements separated in time and create coherence at the middleground. (Straus 1987, 13)21

In my study of Berg’s Four Songs, I feel it necessary to investigate linear

design and pitch hierarchies, an activity for which Schenkerian analysis is a natural

prototype I am also, however, in agreement with the criticisms Straus and Baker

level at earlier Schenker-inspired analyses I believe the shortcomings in such

studies may be viewed as s mantic (? failure to make clear what constitutes

“prolongation”) and notational (a failure to specify what the symbols in “quasi-

Schenkerian” graphs mean, since they cannot possibly have their original

Schenkerian meanings). I seek to avoid these problem in my analyses in two ways.

First, I try to remain, in Baker’s words, a “strict constructionist” (Baker 1983, 168),

that is, conservative in my application of Schenkerian concepts. As a result— such

is Berg’s musical language— I produce only one truly Schenkerian graph, and even

that one only partly explains pitch design in the song it models. Second, since my

other voice-leading giaphs are necessarily only “quasi-Schenkerian,” I at least try

to make clear where my graphic conventions differ in meaning from orthodox

Schenkerian ones. Most often the claims I make for pitch hierarchies are indeed

"associational,” governed wholly by context—and I try to specify the contexts. I

shall also claim, however, to have found a true, if quite limited, prolongational type

in the whole-tone world.

21 Straus writes further that “With a few exceptions, theorists have virtually ceased to produce prolongational analyses of post-tonal music ” (1987, 1) He overstates the case, for his cautionary article has led some theorists to rethink, rather than to abandon, the notion of prolongation in “post-tonal” music. Lehrdahl (1989), Momson (1991), and Wilson (1992), for instance, all attempt to specify conditions in which something stronger than Straus’s “association” may be held to control pitch hierarchies in the music of Schoenberg (in the case of Lehrdahl) and Bartok (for Morrison and Wilson).


28

Pitch-Class Set Theory

Many elements of pitch structure in Berg’s Four Songs are addressable neither

in terms of common-practice harmonic norms, nor in those of Schenkerian analysis.

For these elements, concepts identified with pitch-class set theory prove

analytically valuable. It is moreover in the application of these concepts that

tonality and atonality—as I have construed them—meet. Investigating the tonality

of Berg’s pitch collections involves addressing their specific pc content. In this

regard appraising Berg’s harmonic language is again one of my chief interests. As

the common-practice functions o f Berg’s harmonies become more equivocal, other

ways of comprehending these harmonies and their relationships present themselves.

Allen Forte’s widely used taxonomy of pc set classes (see Forte 1973, 179-181)

offers an alternative to the functional chord labels of traditional harmonic analysis.

Furthermore Berg’s pitch collections, both harmonic and linear, often reveal

intriguing new kinds of tonal relationships—and new ways of mediating old

relationships—based on pc invariance.

Atonal relationships among pitch collections are often more abstract, and it is

up to the analyst to decide which degrees of abstraction to admit to analysis. My

own interests lean towards the concrete. I tend therefore to address only some of

the atonal set relations which pc set theory recognizes. Set-class membership,

governed by equivalence criteria, is naturally pre-eminent: it addresses Berg’s

predilection for a certain (actually rather small) number of set types, both as

harmonies and as linear collections. Inclusion relations are also important, as they

suggest “families” to which Berg’s set types belong. I also note a certain number22of class complement relations among sets, when these seem to have some

By “class complement relations” I mean relations between sets from classes defined as complementary (see Forte 1973, 73ff). Such sets need not be literal complements, that is, they need not themselves partition the pc universe in a wholly pc-variant fashion. None of the complement relations I have found in these songs is literal.


29

justification. Relations of order enter my study in a particular way, through the

analysis of Berg’s interval-succession patterns. The composer’s later fondness for

such patterns is well known to Berg scholars. My analysis^ reveals the degree to

which the patterns are already a nascent feature of Berg’s compositional design in

the Four Songs.

A fundamental concern in pitch-class set analysis is segmentation: before any

set relations can be appraised, the music must be parsed into defensible sets. For

the most part, I shall mount my defence as my analysis proceeds. Generally,

however, I focus on “primary segments” (see Forte 1973, 83) determinable by non-

pc contexts: harmonies, of course, but also linear rhythmic units, phrasing units,

units delineated by register, etc. I also attempt to justify groupings of non-adjacent

pitches on contextual grounds independent of their set-class affiliation.

The Problem of Unity

With the mingling of three different analytic paradigms, will my portrayal of

Berg’s Four Songs be fragmentary, unable to address the experience of the songs

as unified pitch structures? I have two answers to this question. The first is that

confronting ambiguity and multiplicity of structural meaning in these songs is one

of the aims of my analysis. To this end, a variety of approaches is appropriate and

any resulting lack of unity not necessarily a bad thing. The second is that I do, in

fact, integrate my approaches where possible. I use different analytical concepts,

for instance, to illuminate different facets of the same notes. Furthermore I believe

it important that my present study is both detailed (so that the analysis evaluates

essentially every note) and complete (so that passages of music are not examined

out of context). I hope, then, that the overall pictures that emerge of these songs

are multifarious but not discordant.


CHAPTER 3

BERG’S FOUR SONGS

The instruction in composition that followed proceeded effortlessly and smoothly up to and including the Sonata. Then problems began to appear, the nature of which neither of us understood then. I know it today: obviously Alban, who had occupied himself extraordinarily intensively with contemporary music, with Mahler, Strauss, perhaps even Debussy whose work I did not know, but certainly with my music—it is sure that Alban had a burning desire to express himself no longer in the classical forms, harmonies, and melodic forms and their proper schemata o f accompaniment, but in a manner in accordance with the times, and with his own personality which had been developing in the meantime. A hitch was apparent in his creative activity.

I cannot remember what he worked on with me afterwards. Others can report more reliably on this point. One thing is sure: his String Quartet (Opus 3) surprised me in the most unbelievable way by the fullness and unconstraint of its musical language, the strength and sureness of its presentation, its careful working and significant originality. (Arnold Schoenberg, tribute [1936] to Alban Berg, quoted in Reich 1965, 28-291)

Just as Webern remembered 1908 as the watershed year in Schoenberg’s

emancipation from common-practice tonality, so Schoenberg, writing shortly after

Berg’s death, recalled 1908 as a pivotal one in Berg’s development. After

Schoenberg had guided Berg through the completion o f his Op. 1 Piano Sonata that

year, a “hitch” appeared in his pupil’s progress. Schoenberg’s next memory is of

the striking assurance and originality of Berg’s Op. 3 String Quartet, written two

Schoenberg’s tribute is quoted in its original German by Hilmar (1978, 40). The English translation is also quoted by Camer (1983, 15).

30


31

years later. What he failed to recall is the work that occupied Berg right at the

point of his creative hitch: the Four Songs, Op. 2.

If Berg did have something of a compositional crisis around 1908, it was likely

not just over issues o f tonality and atonality. He was still grappling, no doubt, with

the design of large instrumental forms and with the integration and development

of motives on which Schoenberg placed so much importance. Perhaps Berg

welcomed the familiarity, as well as the small dimensions, of the song genre in

which to work through some of his compositional problems. He could then have

returned to large-scale composition with the surprising confidence Schoenberg

found in the Op. 3 Quartet.

In the present study o f Berg’s Four Songs, I am concerned principally with

issues arising from their pitch structure. These are not, however, the sole theoretical

issues addressable in the sot gs. In this chapter, therefore, I shall briefly consider

general aspects o f the songs’ texts and their musical expression, as well as Berg’s

handling of motivic and formal design. I shall then introduce— still in a general

way, though at greater length—the pitch materials and relationships characteristic

of these songs.

Texts and Text Expression

For the purpose o f this study it might admittedly change little if Berg’s Op. 2

were four short instrumental pieces (“songs-without-words” perhaps). It is

nonetheless intriguing that Schoenberg and his pupils carried out many of their

developments during this time in the song genre, where they must also be

concerned with the musical expression of their chosen texts. Like contemporaneous

songs by Schoenberg and Webern, Berg’s Four Songs are worthy o f respect

equally as progressive tone-structures and as compelling examples of late-

Romantic / early -Expression! stic Viennese culture.


32•y

Berg chose his four texts from two sources. The first poem is by Friedrich

Hebbel (1813-1863); it is the fourth in a cycle o f eleven poems entitled Dem

Schmerz sein Rechi, first published in 1842. The remaining three texts are all from

Der Gluhende, a cycle of 87 poems by Alfred Mombert (1872-1942), first

published in 1896; tt,ey are poems 56, 57, and 70 in the cycle.3 The styles o f the

two poets are quite disparate. Hebbel’s poem is regular in metre and in rhyme

scheme. Its images are those conventional to Romantic poetry, abstract expressions

that directly address the poet’s mental states (“Jener Wehen,” “des Lebens Fiille,”

“meine Ruh’”). Mombert’s verses stand far closer to the tortured fixations of

Expressionism. The text rhythms are jagged and the rhyme schemes irregular.

Mombert projects mental states through external, hallucinatory images. The

disquieting, ominous mood of the texts is heightened by Mombert’s obsessive

repetition o f words (in Song 2) or end-rhymes (in Song 3) All four poems,

however, have a common subject. All evoke sleep and, beyond sleep, death: the

longing for an eternal, dreamless sleep in Hebbel’s poem; sleep invaded by surreal

dreams in Mombert’s first two verses; and a nightmarish monodrama in the final 4poem.

The foreboding atmosphere o f these texts is matched by the dense chromaticism

and oppressive dissonance of Berg’s music. Contrasts are again apparent, however,

between the Hebbel setting and those o f Mombert’s poems. In the latter, Berg

gives the erratic texts a prosaic declamation that contrasts with the more regular,

2The texts, along with my translations, are found in the Appendix to this thesis.

3See Kett 1989, 69. In the modem collected edition of Mombert’s works (Mombert 1963) the poems appear as nos. 58, 59, and 72

4Stephen Kett (1989, 70) reports speculation by Rosemary Hilmar that a painting, Die Schlafenden (1897), by the Secessionist painter Josef Engelhart (1864-1941), might have served as Berg’s inspiration for the Four Songs. Berg apparently knew Engelhart and may have been familiar with the painting, which was exhibited in 1909


33

formal phrasing of the Hebbel song. In addition Berg musically “paints” some of

Mombert’s sharp images (the mountain and ravine of Song 2, the tolling bells of

Song 3, the nightingale’s call of Song 4) in a way he cannot with Hebbel’s. Instead

he mirrors the world-weary fatigue of Hebbel’s verse in the languid semitonal

voice-leading that permeates his setting.

Motives

The emphasis Schoenberg placed on motivic integration, both in his own works

and in his teaching of composition, is well known. Berg’s Four Songs are

obviously products of this emphasis: the musical material in each of the first three

springs almost wholly from a few germinal figures. (I shall explain the nature and

use of these figures, and the different character of Song 4, in my analyses of the

individual songs.) In addition the songs share a small inventory o f chordal types,

as well as characteristic bass progressions, cyclic features that might be considered

broadly motivic.

One clearly motivic gesture, a rhythmic one, is shared among Songs 2, 3, and

4 (see Example 3-1) It plays its chief role m Song 3, where it first fully appears

in mm. 2-4 applied to a repeated a b/eb1 dyad (Example 3-la). A basically

palindromic rhythm, it is the first of several symmetrical structures we shall

encounter in these songs. A version of the motive appears slightly earlier, as one

of the elements bridging Songs 2 and 3: the gtsture is begun in the bass at the

final cadence of the former song (Example 3-lb) and finished by the vocal

anacrusis of the latter (Example 3-lc). The figure returns in the closing measures

of Song 3, extended and with a written-out rallentando (Example 3-Id). This

rallentando may itself be an echo of how the pattern is treated in the middle of

Song 3, where it becomes a more relaxed chordal oscillation (Example 3-le).

Finally, two loosely related versions of the figure appear in Song 4, the first in the


Example 3-1. The rhythmic motive in the Four Songs.

34

a: Song 3, mm. 2-4.

b: Song 2, mm. 17-18.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1- - - - - - - - 1- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ’f e - g » .. . . 4 . d * — r*n r i - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - :

tj.3 !PPP

c: Song 3, vocal anacrusis.

Nun ich der Rie-

d: Song 3, mm. 9-12.

e: Song 3, mm. 6-8.


35

Example 3-1 (cont'd).

f: Song 4, mm. 4-6.

g: Song 4, mm. 10-11.

*## i J l81; ------

$ 3=*n f

Reprinted by permission of Robert Lienau. Berlin

piano’s imitation of the nightingale (Example 3-If), the second attached to a pair

of perfect-fifth dyads (Example 3-lg). As Douglas Jarman points out, this shared

gesture adumbrates the rhythmic motives Berg was later to favour in his music.

Like a number of such later motives, the present one is syncopated, using triplets

and tied notes to cut consistently across the beat. It is also relatively independent

of pitch content, although repeated notes feature in all o f its appearances (See

Jarman 1979, 148, 151).

Formal Designs

Ternary formal plans are common in songs, and a certain type of ternary plan

is frequent in those written by Berg and his colleagues in the first decade of this

century. In the Four Songs both Songs 2 and 3 follow a design in which material

from the opening measures returns, compressed and varied but at the same pitch


36

level, in the closing passage. A case can also be made (has been made, as we shall

see) for viewing Song 1 as a similar ternary form. In this song, however, the

formal layout is more complex: its opening and closing measures are mutually

palindromic, and the entire song is more loosely so. (In my analysts 1 shall divide

Song 1 into four sections rather than three.) In all three songs, the correlation

between the outer and middle sections is the same: in the central measures Berg

retains the song’s opening motives but redisposes and modifies them.5 In addition

he elides virtually all formal junctures. Song 4 departs from the previous designs.

A quasi-dramatic scena, it is through-composed (in the sense o f not being

partitioned into sections clearly based on returning material). Even here, however,

vestiges o f ternary design will be evident.

Mark DeVoto (1989, 44) notes that, as a whole, the songs comprise a

“dimensional Bogenform”: the two outer songs (30 and 25 mm. respectively)

bracket the two short inner ones (which collectively make up 30 mm ). Since, as

we shall see, several elements link the two inner songs as a unit, the whole can be

viewed as a structure of three roughly equal parts (Kett 1989, 75).

Pitch Materials and Relationships

I have already noted that the Four Songs share a limited stock of salient pc set

types. 1 wish now to introduce and characterize the pitch materials commonly

found in these songs. I can then concentrate more readily, in the analysis of each

song, on the specific uses to which Berg puts them.

5Mastering this kind of design was a part of Berg’s course of study with Schoenberg. Hilmar writes: “In addition to learning the technique of variation writing, die pupil was expected to write complete shorter compositions with a contrasting middle section. These were composed by rearranging the order in which die motives occurred in the first section of the piece or by introducing new variants.” (Hilmar 1984, 13).


37

The chief source of Berg's materials is, naturally, his teacher, Schoenberg. Most

of the harmonies and harmonic relations Berg favours in these songs are those

discussed in the later chapters of Harmonielehre: “vagrant* chords (Chapter 14),

ninth chords (Chapter 18), whole-tone sonorities (Chapter 20), quartal harmonies

(Chapter 21), and hexachords and larger sonorities (Chapter 22). As Schoenberg's

tribute suggests, his own recent compositions were perhaps of equal value to Berg.

One could well point to Schoenberg’s songs, especially those of Op. 6 (composed

between 1903 and 1905) as models for Berg in the Lied genre Even closer in their

repertory of pitch materials are Schoenberg’s first two String Quartets, (Op. 7,

1904-05; and Op. 10, 1907-08) and, above all, the First Chamber Symphony,

Op. 9 (1906) Webern later recalled the “colossal impression” this piece made on

him (Webern 1963, 48); it must have had a equally inspiring effect on Berg, to

judge from the clear echoes of its vocabulary in both Berg’s Piano Sonata and the

Four Songs.6

Key Signatures and Accidentals

The first three of the Four Songs—those which, according to Berg, retain

“traces o f tonality”—have key signatures: one, six, and seven flats, respectively.

Berg also, however, followed Schoenberg’s practice of writing accidentals before

almost every note. Is one of these practices meaningless? Referring to Song 2,

Joseph N. Straus holds that, possible symbolic value aside, “. . . the key signature

seems to have no significance, since every single note in the song has an accidental

in front of it. . . . Let us then put aside thoughts of E b minor and see how the

music is organized” (Straus 1990, 84). 1 disagree with Straus’s assessment;

6In 1913 Berg wrote an (unpublished) analytical essay on the Chamber Symphony. Over the next two years, he also seems to have prepared an arrangement of the work for piano, four hands; this arrangement is lost (Camer 1983, 299-300).


38

redundant Berg’s notation m? j be, but meaningless it is not. As we shall see, there

is clear evidence to tie pitch relationships in these three songs to the keys of

D minor, Eb minor, and A b minor, respectively. Any analysis which ignores these

ties fails to do justice to crucial aspects of the music’s pitch design. At the same

time Berg’s democratic application of accidentals cuts across the traditional

privileging of diatonic pitches and suggests alternative relationships grounded in

the chromatic scale.7 Such relationships are also, I think, indisputably present.

Berg’s notation, then, reflects the multiplicity of pitch-structural meaning displayed

by these songs.

With more justification Jim Samson writes, “In the final song Berg abandoned

a key signature and with it tonality” (Samson 1977, 124). Pitch design in this final

song is certainly less bound to common-practice conventions than it is m the

previous settings. It may, however, be impossible to decide whether or not Berg

has actually “abandoned” a key signature here. As we shall see, the opening

measures of this song are mostly grounded on a bass pedal, a perfect-fifth dyad

Cl|/Glj. Such a pedal suggests a C-based tonality for which Berg might have

thought a “null” key signature appropriate.

Prominent Pc Set Classes and their Relationships

Figure 3-1 summarizes my appraisal of the more important classes of pc sets

found in these songs and charts the set-class relationships which emerge from

Berg’s treatment o f them. The figure maps several kinds o f data.

7In Harmonielehre, Schoenberg betrays increasing impatience with common-practice pitch notation. It is evident to him that, as pitch materials become consistently chromatic, traditional notation ceases to be either practically clear or theoretically explanatory. That enharmonic notation, for instance, produces twenty-one pc names . . derives from our imperfrct notation; a more adequate notation will recognize only twelve note names and give an independent symbol for each.” (Schoenberg 1978, 387; see also 233, 332)


39

Figure 3-1. Prominent pc set classes in the Four Songs.

7-215-21

(9-11)3-11 6-20s4-2 Os

6-Z443-2 4-27

(8-8)

4-8(7-20)5-203-3

(8-18)4-18 6-Z6 J3-4

5-324-Z15-.

(9-5)- 3-5 5-34 6-344-21 s

(7-33)(8-25)4-25s 5-33 6-353-8

7-285-284-24

7-26 -5-26

(8-Z29)4-Z29-J

7-356-32s5-35s

._________________________________________________________________I

1 Prominent set classes and class complement relations. I list mainly classes of

cardinalities 3 to 6. Naturally a number of larger sets are also prominent in

these songs. In my analysis, however, their importance derives either partly or

wholly (for those in parentheses) from tneir class complementation o f smaller

sets. For this reason 1 do not list them in separate columns but cite them over

the classes they complement.


40

2. Symmetry. Classes whose symmetry I judge to be projected in the songs are

each marked by an “s” after the class name. There are certainly other classes

in the list that have symmetrical properties, but Berg’s disposition o f sets ino

those classes does not capitalize on their symmetry.

3. Inclusion relations. I indicate these by lines connecting class names; dashed

lines indicate relations between classes of non-adjacent cardinalities. I map only

those relations I consider to be exploited in the music. (By “exploited” here I

mean that I have found instances where I discover one set to be a readily

segmentable subset of another.)

4. Z-related set classes (See Forte 1973, 21-24) Two pairs of these classes are

linked in the figure by brackets: 4-Z15/4-Z29 and 6-Z6/6-Z38. In both cases 1

judge that Berg has exploited the pairing of sets m these classes.

5. Set mutation. An arrow in the figure indicates the mutation of one set into

another by a pc change of a single semitone. Again, 1 chart only such shifts as

I judge to be significant in the music itself.

This list is clearly selective: it cites only a portion o f the set classes discernible

in these songs. I am persuaded, however, that the list embraces all of the songs'

most significant classes. Many of the classes cited are embodied prominently m

more than one song. Those restricted to just one song are quite notable in that one.

The features that the figure maps directly are, under my definition, atonal. The

presence of the same set classes in different pitch environments and the emergence

o f such purely intervallic features as symmetry, class complement relations, and

Z-pairings is evidence for the importance in these songs of non-tonal paradigms

oIn the abstract, symmetry is not an unusual property of pc set classes: 81 (that is,

39%) of die 208 classes of cardinalities 3 to 9 are symmetrical to some degree. Sets of these classes display pc invariance under particular transposition and/or inversion operations.


41

of structure: in Allen Forte’s term “set consciousness” (Forte, 1978, 133). It is

crucial to note, however, that these same materials, and even some of the same

relationships, also participate in projecting the songs’ tonal designs. Most o f the

listed set classes, for instance, are represented harmonically (although several are

additionally found in linear collections). Many such classes are obtainable as, or

easily denvable from, common-practice harmonies—which is how they are

presented in Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre.

The lines in this figure which trace inclusion relations trace (often inter

marrying) “families” of set classes. Family relationships are germane to the songs’

pitch structure, and it will benefit my later analysis to characterize the most

important of these families. This introduction will encompass nearly all o f the

figure’s set classes

Tertian-diatonic Collections

The most conventionally tonal of set classes is the tertian triad, class

3-11 (037). It is also an uncommon type in these songs. Only at the beginning and

ending of Song 1 and at the closing cadence of Song 3 do we find pure triads,

though these few chords are clearly o f great formal and tonal weight. On the other

hand, many of Berg’s harmonies are 7th and 9th chords. Of particular note are

tetrachord 4-27 (0258) and its superset 5-34 (02469). Class 4-27 has four guises

in common-practice harmony In its “original” form9 it is a half-diminished 7th (for

example, VI i°7) or—as in Song 3—a minor triad with an added sixth above the

root (I+ 6) In its more common “inverted” form it appears as the major-minor 7th

(for example, V7) and German 6th (Ger.+6/5) chords. The enharmonic equivalence

9That is, in a form equivalent to the prime form under transposition—as opposed to one equivalent under inversion plus transposition, which I am terming the “inverted” form (see Forte 1973, 7ff).


4 2

of the two latter harmonies led Schoenberg to label this sonority “vagrant,” a chord

whose enharmonic re-interpretation can induce shifts of tonal focus (Schoenberg

1978, 254-255) Oscillations between V7 and G er+6/5 are common in late

nineteenth-century music, and we shall find that part of the tonal plan for Song 3

rests on this technique.10 Another part of Song 3’s design, however, plays on a

distinction between the “original” and “inverted” forms of class 4-27 This division

is also preserved in the opemng measures of Song 1, and 1 shall use the

distinguishing labels “4-27” and “4-27i” in analyzing both songs.

In Song 1, class 4-27 is further associated with pentachord 5-34, a pivotal

sonority in both the opening and closing sections of that song. Though this type’s

common role is as a V9 chord,11 it appears here in tonic and subdominant

functions. Example 3-2 cites the first of these appearances ui order to show the rich

inclusion relations in this pentachord. The chord in this example, [0,2,4,6,9],

embraces not only the tonic major triad (3-11 [2,6,9]) and I7/* chord

(4-27i [6,9,0,2]), but also an “original” set 4-27 [4,6,9,0], Of equal importance, it

also encompasses a completely different type of sonority, whole-tone tetrachord

4-21 [0,2,4,6].

Whole-tone Collections

The most conspicuous family of set classes m these songs is the whole-tone

family: class 6-35 (02468T)12 and its subset classes 5-33 (02468), 4-21 (0246),

10A few years before Berg, Schoenberg also showed an interest in exploiting the V7 / G er.^5 equivalence. His songs “Traumleben” (Op. 6, no. 1), from 1903, and “Lockung” (Op. 6, no. 7), from 1905, provide examples of two different tonal designs hinging on the double interpretation of this sonority.

11 With this function it shows up in Berg’s Op. 1 Piano Sonata as the opening chord of the second theme area, m. 29

12T = pc 10.


Example 3-2. Song 1: m. 5, 5-34 harmony.

43

4-2771 4-2?

3-11

5-34 4-21[0,2,4,6,91

97f

d: I

10,2,4,6)

4-24 (0248), 4-25 (0268), and 3-8 (026). It will emerge that the pitch structures of

both Songs 1 and 2 are mostly governed by whole-tone collections, and the design

of Song 4 is partly so. Before composing these songs Berg had already explored

whole-tone materials in a few recent works, notably in “Nacht” and “Schilflied”

(both 1908), from the Seven Early Songs, and in the Op. 1 Sonata. The set which

more than any other lies behind the whole-tone passages o f these earlier pieces

(and their models among Schoenberg’s works) is the augmented triad, set class

3-12 (048). Intriguingly, however, this type is nearly absent from the Op. 2 songs.

Its place is taken by one of the other whole-tone trichords, class 3-8 (026). Figure

3-1 indicates the centrality of trichord 3-8, which has inclusion links not only to

the larger whole-tone classes, but also to several other important set types,

including class 4-27.

As we saw in Example 2-1, many of the whole-tone collections are derivable

as extended and altered common-practice chords. The realm of whole-tone

harmony may be very different f'om the common-practice one, however. It may

be governed by the radical symmetry o f set class 6*35, of which there are just two

members, and by the varying degrees of symmetry inherent in all of its subsets.


44

Although this symmetry offers an important principle of structure, it is not one

Berg often exploits in these songs. Only classes 4-25 in Song 2 and 4-21 in Song 4

are deployed in ways which directly expose their symmetry. In fact, Berg seems

more interested in overcoming a well known effect of whole-tone symmetry: the

stasis of whole-tone harmony.

To create a sense of tonal motion within the whole-tone idiom, we shall find

Berg using two tactics. The first—one which is also found in “Nacht” and in the

Sonata—is to exploit both of the members of class 6-35: [0,2,4,6,8,10] and

[1,3,5,7,9,11], I shall term these members the whole-tone “fields” and label them

WT-0 and WT-1 respectively. Allowing that a field may be represented by any of

its subsets, we shall find that Berg employs systematic oscillations between the two

fields as a basic principle of design in Songs 1 and 2 This oscillation is not a

wholly new invention; it actually links the whole-tone collections back to common-

practice tonality. It turns out that movement between almost any two whole-tone

collections o f opposite fields will involve at least one pair of pcs separated by

ic 5—the interval class that underlies fifth-relations in the common-practice

idiom 13 Whole-tone field oscillation can be used, then, as an instance of these

fifth-relations, with many whole-tone chords construed as altered common-practice

harmonies. The bond to fifth-relations is especially strong if one places the

ic-5-related pcs in the bass, as Berg usually does. There is still a defect in this

bond, however: field oscillation does not in itself privilege one field over another,

to match the inequality that always underlies fifth-related functions (for example,

V and I). It is notable, then, that in both Songs 1 and 2 we shall find Berg

inducing inequality, using metrical accent and duration to emphasize one field over

the other. He then provokes changes in the patterns o f emphasis to define formal

,3The sole exceptions involve semitonal oscillation between small dyads: [0,2] - [1,3] and [0,4] - [1,3] (and movements transpositionally equivalent to these).


45

units within each song. In Song 4 Berg continues to employ sets from both fields,

but now the temporal oscillation o f fields, and its tonal implications, are gone

Instead o f being separated in time the fields are now presented simultaneously, but

segregated in register.

Whole-tone Dissonance: “Almost-whole-tone” sets

We shall see that in Song 2 Berg pursues the oscillation of whole-tone fields

using pure whole-tone sonorities (indeed mostly just one such sononty). In Song 1,

however, he introduces his second tactic for generating directed motion: the use of

“almost-whole-tone” collections, in which all pcs save one belong to a single field.

One such collection is set class 4-27. A superset not only o f trichord 3-11 but also

of class 3-8, this tetrachord plays a mediating role between the tertian-diatonic and

whole-tone harmonic idioms. More prevalent is a group of sets generated by

trichord 3-5 (016). Their behaviour is exemplified by one of Song l ’s crucial

passages, quoted in Example 3-3. In this passage, the voice (doubled by the RH)

Example 3-3. Song 1: mm. 5-6.

Schla fen!

3-5 [0.5,6]

3-8

w4-Z15 4-18 4-21

[0,2,5,6] [5,6,9,01 [0,2,4,61

15-32 10,2,5,6,9] , i 5-34 10,2,4,6,91 »

^10 — 9

« 1d: I



46

executes an appoggiatura motion, a falling semitone, which ends the song’s

opening vocal phrase. In the RH this motion transforms trichord 3-5 [0,5,6] into

3-8 [0,4,6]. When we add the bass D l| to this movement, we see that almost-whole-

tone set 4-Z15 [0,2,5,6] resolves into whole-tone tetrachord 4-21 [0,2,4,6], From

the viewpoint of common-practice harmony, however, this is no resolution: the

appoggiatura’s second tone, el| *, is scarcely less dissonant than the preceding f \ l .

It is, conversely, a true whole-tone appoggiatura, a prolongational device defined

by the whole-tone pitch framework. In this framework major seconds are harmonic

and consonant. Only pitches producing almost-whole-tone sets are dissonant, and

only semitonal movement can reliably be felt as linear. Berg plays upon these

principles to transform a familiar prolongational device into one which still

functions—but only in relation to the whole-tone context. The effect of this device

may be quite localized, but it echoes consistently throughout Song 1. It will show

up later, for instance, in transformations of set-class 4-Z29 (0137) into 4-24, 5-28

(02368) into 5-33, and hexachord 6-34 (013579) into 6-35.

The overall chord of resolution in Example 3-3 is the same pentachord

5-34 [0,2,4,6,9] that we met in Example 3-2. The whole-tone dissonance of this

almost-whole-tone harmony is offset by its previously discussed prominence as a

superset of tertian-diatonic collections 3-11 and 4-27.

“Tritonal-Quartal” Collections: the Supersets of 3-5

The other pentachordal harmony in Example 3-3, that which resolves to set

5-34, is 5-32 [0,2,5,6,9], As represented here, 5-32 (01469) might rank as an

“almost-almost-whole-tone” class, but it turns up later with other associations. The

disposition in which set 3-5 appears in the example, the union of a tritone and a

perfect fourth, is its normal guise in these songs. It is in this disposition that we

shall find it as a subset of the two all-interval tetrachords, 4-Z15 and 4-Z29; of


47

tetrachord 4-18, and thence o f pentachords 5-28 and 5-32. We have just met these

classes as adjuncts of whole-tone collections (and o f 5-34) to which they resolve.

Very quickly in Song 1, however, a few of them achieve some independence, no

longer always resolving. In this independent role classes 4-Z15, 4-Z29 and 5-32

return at the end of Song 4, preserving their former dispositions with the tritone-

plus-fourth formation in the piano’s RH. The prevalence of these “tritonal-quartal”

classes at both the beginning and the end of Op. 2 has led to repeated assertions

that “all four songs are derived from a single chord” (Redlich 1957,41), that chord

being either class 5-32 or its subset 4-Z15.14 Such statements are exaggerated, I

believe: I find no evidence, for instance, that these two collections play any

substantial roles in Songs 2 and 3. Class 3-5 does re-appear in Song 3, however,

as a subset of another tetrachord, 4-8 (0156). Sets of this tetrachord in turn

generate a pair of complementary hexachords, 6-Z38 (012378) and 6-Z6 (012567),

a pair which underlies the song’s linear design.

Quartal Collections

Schoenberg devotes the brief penultimate chapter of Harmonielehre

(Schoenberg 1978, 399-410) to quartal harmonies, among which he includes only

chords constructed in perfect fourths. He traces his own usage of such chords to

Pelleas und Melisande (1902-03) and to the First Chamber Symphony. Despite

having experimented with them in the Op. 1 Sonata, Berg makes scant, though

striking, use of quartal harmonies in the Four Songs. The same hexachord,

6-32 [7,9,11,0,2,4], built in fourths above bass tone B l|, will turn up repeatedly in

the central measures of both Song 1 (mm. 18-19) and Song 3 (mm. 6-8). Its effect

14Redlich, Samson (1977, 122), and Wennerstrom (1977, 12) all claim class 5-32 as the songs’ nexus sonority. Kett (1989, 71-72) opts for tetrachord 4-Z15, which he holds to “unify the entire cycle.”


4 8

is curious. In neither case is it assimilated harmonically into its surroundings,

which are not quartal. Berg does make the chords in Song 1 the focus of multipart

voice leading based on semitones and held notes, following Schoenberg’s advice

in resolving quartal chords. (As it happens, the chord built on Bl) is the same

quartal hexachord Schoenberg illustrates in Harmonielehre [Schoenberg 1978,

406].)

Quartal collections are more widespread here in linear form (as they are in the

Piano Sonata and in Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony). Almost distinctive enough

to rank as a shared motive are the bass progressions in ascending perfect fourths

(and a few descending fifths) found in all four songs. There is again a common-

practice idiom behind the harmonic progressions Berg erects above these basses:

the falling-fifths harmonic sequence with applied V7 chords The rudimentary

progression in Song 3 (mm. 4-6), only three chords long, uses just these harmonies.

In Songs 2 and 4, however, Berg develops a feature inherent in such sequences,

the fact that some upper notes may descend in patterns of semitones against the

rising bass pattern.15 The structure of Song 2 is almost wholly governed by such

“interval cycle” patterns, arising from its opening sequence of applied V7/b5 (class

4-25) harmonies.16 Another bass cycle, nearly identical to those in Song 2, turns

up towards the end of Song 4 (mm. 20-22). Here it is accompanied by a

descending array of trichord 3-5 harmonies, generating an oscillation of 4-Z15 and

4-Z29 tetrachords. Only in Song 1 (mm. 11-14) does Berg tamper with the quartal

bass pattern itself, interrupting the progression with a single semitone. The

15One example of such a pattern, familiar from analysis classes, is found in the middle section (mm. 21-24) of Chopin’s Mazurka in G minor, Op. posth. 67, no. 2. See Burkhart 1986, 364.

16The term “interval cycle” is George Perle’s. Perle (1977a) has investigated Berg's enduring fondness for such cycles—successions of single interval types—and traced it back to Song 2.


4 9

interruption allows Berg to construct a rising, rather than falling chord sequence

atop the bass, a sequence fashioned from combined whole-tone and class 4-27

harmonies.

Other Notable Collections

1 have described nearly all of the significant set classes and relationships of

Songs 1, 2, and 3. Virtually all betray ties to the conventions of common-practice

tonality. We shall discover that in Song 4 Berg moves noticeably beyond these

conventions, though he partly does so by recasting materials from the earlier songs.

A ready example is provided by set class 4-20 (0158). We first meet this tetrachord

in Song 3 (mm. 3-4) as a major-major seventh chord (VI ). When the same class

returns in Song 4 (m. 1 and mm. 10-11), Berg disregards its traditional function.

Instead he now exploits its intervallic symmetry, especially in its latter appearance,

where he generates an intricate pattern of inclusion relations linking it to two quite

non-traditional classes, 6-Z44 (012569) and 7-Z18 (0123589).

Even tertian triad 3-11 is recast towards the end of Song 4. In a chain of final

cadences for this song (mm. 22-25) Berg combines triads— segregated between the

RH and LH o f the piano—to construct another sequence o f non-conventional

sonorities linked by ties of class inclusion and complementation: 5-21 (01458),

6-20 (014589), and 7-21 (0124589).

Other Pitch Materials and Relationships Perfect-fifth Dyads

Aside from features o f pitch design directly attributable to set-class materials,

these songs exhibit other representative elements and relationships. Song 1, for

instance, opens with the oscillation o f two bass notes D l| and A l|, which (with some

neighbour tones) serve as a double pedal throughout the opening section (mm. 1-9,

including the measures cited in Example 3-3). This pedal returns at the song’s end,


50

but also reappears in the central measures of Song 3, transferred to the treble. It

will emerge that pcs A l| and D l| have cryptic significance, but the principle of

grounding chords in perfect fifths is also of influence in Song 2 { B \> I in m. 11)

and especially in Song 4, whose tonal structure is fashioned around recurrent

perfect-fifth dyads. Apart from their inverse association with quartal collections,

perfect fifths are naturally icons o f common-practice tonal stability. This feature

may explain their prevalence in Song 4, in an environment mostly devoid of other

common-practice referents.

Bass Motion and Tonal Relationships

Some of the features detailed above might prepare us to expect another of the

ubiquitous aspects of tonal design in these songs. In his study o f what he terms the

“creeping chromaticism” o f Berg’s music, Mark Devoto comments “One comes to

suspect that when the bass does not move by [perfect-fifth] motion, it will by and

large move chromatically, as part of a longer line than the immediate tonicizing

root-motion; or it will move by a combination of the two, namely by tritone, that

interval being the perfect fifth minus the chromatic step.” (DeVoto 1991, 64-65).

The tonal plans o f all four songs in Op. 2 are laid out in patterns of perfect-

fourth / perfect-fifth, semitone, and tritone relations. Song 1 begins and ends on its

tonic D l| minor; its two climactic harmonies (mm. 16-17) are built above basses A b

and Gl| (and C# is the principal bass tone in mm. 10-14). In Song 2, the tonic Eb

is associated both with its dominant, B b (itself also associated with E l|), and with

A i|. The tonic A b of Song 3 quickly gives way to its dominant, E b, but encloses

within this movement a central tonicization of D I). And the tonal plan of Song 4

comprises a progression from C l| to B l|, principally by way of F 0. The prevalence

of ics 1, 5, and 6 here yields a close integration of linear design with the songs’

harmonic vocabulary, in which we have already noted the importance of “tritonal-


51

quartal” collections. (The interval array of class 3-5 (016) encapsulates ics 1, 5,

and 6.) The above plans also instantiate a central dichotomy of pitch design

running through these songs. This is the dichotomy between conventional tonality

based on fifth-relations (especially the tonic-dominant relation, upon which Songs

2 and 3 clearly rest) and pitch relations based on symmetrical partitionings of the

chromatic scale (since the tritone bisects the octave). More perhaps than any other

general feature, the tension—or symbiosis—between these two principles is what

animates the richness of tonal meaning we shall find in these songs.

Interval-Succession Patterns

The wider tension (or again symbiosis) which runs through this music is the

one between the tonal and atonal contexts of pitch relations. Amid the tonal

designs of Berg’s Four Songs we shall observe in its infancy a group of atonal

resources that Berg was to favour greatly in his later music, interval-succession

patterns. These systematic orderings of intervals come in two varieties. We have

already encountered the first variety, the “interval cycle,” patterns moulded from

combinations of single interval types. Such patterns, we have seen, are principally

found in Songs 2 and 4. If Berg was later to develop an abstract understanding of

interval cycles (see Perle 1977a, 1) these early examples point clearly to the origins

of his ideas. The cycles are a natural outgrowth not only of such common-practice

idioms as the falling-fifihs harmonic sequence but also of those pc set classes

disposable as symmetrical arrays of one or two interval types (such as 4-21, 4-25,

6-32, and 6-35).17

An associated type of intervallic pattern is the wedge. Wedges are consistently

expanding or contracting successions of intervals, either within a single voice or

17We also find cycles, using both quartal chords and whole-tone sonorities, in the exposition of Berg’s Piano Sonata (mm. 24-27, mm. 49-50).


52

between pairs of (often semitonally cyclic) voices. Again this atonal pattern has its

roots in tonal design, and more especially in Berg’s highly chromatic voice leading

Devoto (1991, 63-64) has traced a short contracting pattern in “Schilflied,” from

the Seven Early Songs; similar rudimentary patterns turn up in the Piano Sonata

(for example, in m. 37). Wedge patterns in the first three of the Four Songs are

equally elementary, slight developments o f the more general “creeping

chromaticism” that characterizes Berg’s voice-leading. In Song 4, however, Berg’s

attention to the wedge is more systematic. The central measures o f this song

(mm. 10-18) are plotted around an intricate complex of wedge-shaped and parallel

interval successions, the real precursor to those highly developed wedges that18pervade Berg’s later music.

Musical Cyphers

Even before the uncc /ering of “secret programmes” in some of Berg’s most

famous works19 his music was known to harbour personal cyphers The Four

Songs have their share of such cyphers, some of which are referred to in the

published literature on Berg. Schoenbei_, seems to have been the object of most of

the encrypted homage. Bryan Simms, for instance, writes

The songs of Berg’s opus 2 also contain a hidden tribute to his teacher Arnold Schoenberg. The first song is in an extended D minor, the favored key o f Schoenberg’s earliest works; . . . The second song uses a key signature suggesting E b minor, . . . The note E b (Es in German) may be understood symbolically to refer to the first letter o f the name Schoenberg This symbolism is carried into the third song as well, which progresses from a statement o f an A b triad (>45 in German: Arnold Schoenberg) . . . through

I8On Berg’s use of wedge patterns see Jarman 1979, 2Iff; 1987; DeVoto 1991.

19About these programmes see Perle 1977b; Green 1977; Dalen 1989, Jarman 1989 On other aspects of Berg’s musical cryptography see Stadlen 1981.


53

a progression in D minor, to an E b triad at the end, thus thrice referring toBerg’s mentor.” (Simms 1986a, 162)20

Although I have not made cypher detection an aim of my analysis, I have

uncovered in these songs a few “Schoenberg signatures,” pitch collections

containing the musically encodable notes of Schoenberg’s name (A...D

SCH...BEG). Two of these— one bridging Songs 1 and 2, the other in the central

measures of Song 3—are complete signatures (set 8-14 [7,9,10,11,0,2,3,4]).

Another—just the pitches for A...D S (set 3-5 [9,2,3])— lies at the end of Song 4.

I have resisted the temptation to view any appearances of set class 6-Z44 (the

“Schoenberg signature” class; see Forte 1978, 135-145) as having cryptic

significance, but 1 do expect that other cyphers—especially those referring to

Helene— still lie buried in these songs.

None of the materials and procedures I have surveyed in this chapter is

unfamiliar to those who have studied Berg’s later music. What is indeed

remarkable is the consistency with which Berg continued to reuse and recast the

same musical idioms right up to the time of Lulu. While cataloguing these idioms

is useful and fascinating, however, it does not address the more critical issue of

how Berg uses them. Appreciating the integrity of Berg’s tonal and atonal designs

demands close analysis of the entire songs. Fortunately they are o f modest

dimensions, so analyses which are both detailed and complete are entirely feasible

These analyses will occupy the following four chapters.

20Jarman (1979, 18, n. 1) also links Berg’s early predilection for D minor to his relationship with his fiancee. Adorno (1991, 48) speculates that a passage in mm. 5-6 of Song 3, featuring the vocal pitches a \|1 - b b1 - b l| (in German, A, B, H), refers to “Alban Berg / Helene.”


CHAPTER 4

SONG 3, “Nun ich der Riesen Starksten iiberwand"

Of the four songs in Op. 2 “Nun ich der Riesen Starksten liberwand” has

received the least attention in the published Berg literature The consensus seems

to have been that whether or not this song was the first to be penned, it is the least

advanced, the song with the least to offer an analyst tracing Berg’s development

of new pitch resources The song’s premises do indeed appear more traditional, its

harmonies more clearly tertian than those of the group’s other songs. The

progressive whole-tone materials crucial to the other songs are barely apparent

here. There is, however, a great deal more of interest in the pitch materials of this

song than its relative neglect hitheito would promise. My analysis will uncover a

finely wrought ambiguity in how this song projects some traditional tonal

functions. It will disclose an inextricable interplay of common-practice and

innovative tonal relationships, m which apparently traditional elements function in

quite new ways, and some ostensibly new materials project traditional functions.

Finally it will reveal a specifically atonal Lvel o f design m Berg’s use of

intervallic patterns.

Text, Form, and Motives

Mombert’s poem describes a fragmentary, disjointed dream, one that begins in

struggle and ends in aimless wandering. In between, there is respite, as the poet is

guided home by a “white fairy-tale hand” to the ponderous sound of bells. Both

the poem’s images and its emotional curve are mirrored in Berg’s music. The song

54


55

comprises four vocal phrases, and its ternary formal plan is related to the text as

follows.

A phrase 1 mm. 1-3phrase 2 mm. 3-5(6)

B phrase 3 mm (5)6-8

A' phrase 4 mm 8-12

Nun ich der Riesen Starksten uberwand, mich aus dem dunkelsten Land heimfand1an einer weiften Marchenhand—Hallen schwer die Glocken.Und ich wanke durch die Strafien schlafbefangen.

As he does m the other songs, Berg elides the formal and phrase divisions here.

Because of the song’s tonal design, for instance, I posit that Section B begins at

the downbeat of m. 6, though both the vocal and the piano material in m. 5 lead

seamlessly into this section. Section A' is marked by a truncated return, in the

piano, to the song’s opening material at its original pitch level. Thr ‘section begins

on the fourth eighth-note beat of m. 8 with the material in the RH making the

elision.

Two motivic gestures dominate the song’s material. The first is the stark (“der

Riesen Starksten”) four-note motive heard first in the piano’s octaves in m. 1. This

motive recurs through mm. 1-4 and again in the A' section. The second gesture is

the unbalanced (“und ich wanke”) syncopated chord pattern found in the piano RH

in mm. 2-4 and again m mm. 9-12 (already illustrated in Examples 3-la and d).

These two figures also appear in the central measures but in altered, less ominous

guises. The descending tntone o f the first motive is broadened into a perfect fifth,

which tolls (“halier schwer die Glocken”) in the piano RH in mm 6-8. Above this

gesture the vocal phrase uses the dotted rhythm of the original motive. Meanwhile

1 Lines 2 and 3 of the text are given as they appear in the song. A comparison with the original poetic text (in the Appendix) will show that Berg has altered the position of the word “mich.” This alteration gives line 2 three initial unstressed syllables, in imitation of line 1. Berg then uses this imitation in setting these two lines.


56

the piano maintains the syncopated chord pattern throughout mm. 4-8, but with a

more stable, even rhythm (illustrated in Example 3-le),

Virtually the entire fabric of the song is woven froin these two gestures.

Moreover each of the gestures contributes in a distinctive way to the work’s pitch

structure: the first forms a linear skeleton for the song, the second, aided by the

vocal line, projects the song’s harmonic foundation To explain how these two

processes operate, I shall first consider them separately, beginning with the latter.

Harmonic Design

The harmonic basis o f this song is summarized in Example 4-1. These are the

harmonies projected by the second motivic gesture, the syncopated chords Above

the chords is an outline of th3 salient vocal pitches. The example’s conventions are

as follows.

1. The piano harmonies are arrayed in the inversions in which they appear in the

song, though most bass notes (and some other notes in section B) are altered

in register to clarify voice leading. The chords are numbered, for reference,

between the piano staves.

2. In mm. 6-8 the piano actually has five chords (the first struck four times),

alternating between two different harmonies. In the example, I have omitted the

second- and third-to-last chords as being mere repetitions.

3. The two bass notes in parentheses are not part of the chordal gesture, but it will

shortly prove useful to acknowledge their presence

4. The grounds for choosing which vocal pitches to include are various: almost

all are pitches which appear on accented textual syllables or in strong metric

positions, are relatively long in duration, or are made salient by changes in

melodic direction. (I shall later give more detailed consideration to the vocal

line’s structure.)


Exam

ple

4-1.

So

ng

3: ha

rmon

ic

plan

.

57


58

5. Underneath the staff system the chords are assigned two groups o f analytic

labels: (1) set-class names with pc content indicated and (2) figured-

bass / roman-numeral labels. The labels in both groups take account of vocal

pitches directly above the piano chords. (The double suspension to chord 4, in

the piano RH, is not included in its set-class label)

It is the traditionally tonal aspect of this chordal sequence which faces us in the

figured-bass 1 roman-numeral analysis. This analysis suggests two primary

harmonic patterns at work in the sequence, the first operating within the second.

Harmonic Pattern One

The first pattern involves the song’s central modulation. After opemng in

A b-minor the music briefly tonicizes D minor. Section A' brings the harmony

abruptly back to A b-minor, though the song ends on the dominant. Schoenberg

discusses techniques for modulating by a tntone in chapter 15 of Harmonielehre

(Schoenberg 1978, 276-285), but Berg’s progression is a good deal more compact

than any of those his teacher presents as models. It is also richer in tetrachords and

more chromatic in its voice leading.

Berg’s design hinges on a pair of harmonies, chords 2 and 3, which reappear

in the A' section as chords 9 and 10. Chord 2 pivots between the A b-minor and

D-minor regions, its pivotal role signalled by enharmonic respelling, when it

returns as chord 9 this role is gone. This harmony acts as a precursor to chords 3

and 10, into which it mutates by the descent of a single semitone (d$ l /e b1 to d \ 1).

Chords 3 and 10, the truly pivotal chords in this progression, are enharmonically7 + 6 /5equivalent V and Ger. harmonies. We recall from Chapter 3 that such

equivalence underlies the “vagrancy” o f this sonority and hence its usefulness for

provoking quick modulation. Here Berg first uses the V7 form, chord 3, as a

secondary dominant; it resolves to the new region’s own V7 (chord 4— a double


59

suspension cushioning the already smooth voice leading), which in turn settles on

the tonic o f D minor (chord 5). In the A' section, the vagrant sonority (chord 10)

is re-interpreted. Approached as before, it is now quitted as a G er+6/5, keeping the

music—albeit inconclusively—in the A b-minor region.

Harm onic Pattern Two

The above pattern, not unconventional for its time, operates within another one.

For this second pattern Berg draws on an older tonal gesture: the cadential six-four

(V6-5/4-3). There is some irony in Berg’s treatment o f this figure. Cadences are

normally expressions o f tonal confirmation. In this song, however, the overall

harmonic plan is an elaborated six-four gesture, but the effect is of tonal ambiguity.

The cadential figure actually comprises a triple voice-leading resolution (again

including the vocal pitches): v l,9‘8/6'5/4",i. This resolution is played out over three

chords in strong formal positions: chord 1, chord 8 (which reiterates chord 1), and

chord 11. The triple resolution o f chord 1 (and chord 8) to chord 11 is then much

expanded by the intervening chords, which mainly add neighbour tones to the

central six-four figure. Most notably, they chromatically encircle the static bass E b:

with its upper neighbour (Fb / E l|) in chords 2 and 3, with its tonicized lower

neighbour (Dlj) in the B section, and again with the upper neighbour at the

beginning o f m. 9 (The El| in parenthesis) and in chords 9 and 10.

The salient property o f this prolonged cadential gesture is its failure to resolve

finally to I, the harmonic sequence elaborates only that part o f the cadence which

2Not materially affecting this pattern is the b b1 which the vocal line adds to chords 9 and 10 (and which is echoed in the piano LH in m. 10, omitted in Example 4-1). Schoenberg regarded the Ger.*6 as an altered 9th chord, normally built on scale degree II, whose root is tacit (Schoenberg 1978, 246-247). Berg could be held to have formed the pentachord of chord 10 simply by adding this root, B b. Nothing about the function of chord 10—that of dominant preparation—is thereby really changed.


60

projects the dominant function. In doing so it questions the centrality o f this tonic:

is not E b a stronger tonal centre here than A b ?

Two considerations, I believe, make the answer: No, nof quite. The first is that

the tonic triad is indeed projected at the song's opening, if not in block harmonic

form. The initial vocal notes clearly arpeggiate the A b-minor triad (arching from i ycb to c b ). Less transparently, the same triad is also outlined in the piano's linear

gestures in mm. 1 -2: A b (the initial tone), C b and E b (RH and LH, respectively, on

the last beat of m. 2).

Schoenberg's Harmonielehre raises a second consideration. Discussing chords

in second inversion, Schoenberg holds the common view that, in cadential patterns,

the “tonic” six-four harmony is functionally adjunct to the dominant to which it

resolves. Yet he also perceives an ambiguity in this chord, since it still sounds the

pitch classes of the tonic triad.

There is then in the six-four chord a conflict between its (outward) form, its sound, and its (inner) constitution. Whereas its outward form indicates, for example, the 1st degree, its constitution, its instinct demands the Vth degree. (Schoenberg 1978, 76)3

With more orthodox cadential six-four figures we might easily ignore Schoenberg's

perception o f ambiguity. I think it is apt, however, in the present case. It is striking

that the only block “tonic” harmonies present in the song are the second-inversion

chords, 1 and 8, and that these are placed in formal positions where we might

expect tonic harmony to confirm the A b-minor tonality. Capping as it does the

Schoenberg's dual view of the six-four chord is reflected in the dual derivation he presents for the cadential six-four figure . He invokes first the suspension dissonance (the usual derivation), then an imagined practice of inserting a 1 chord just before the cadentialV, placing the former in second inversion for a smoother bass line. (Schoenberg 1978, 143-144)


61

opening arpeggiated triads, chord 1 seems especially “tonic-oriented,” and thus

especially dichotomous in its implications.

Dichotomy appears to be the point in this cadential pattern. The relative weights

o f A b and E b as tonal centres seem finely balanced, with the balance tilted slightly

in favour of the former. In fact, Berg maintains this balance right up to the song’s

final gesture. In mm. 11-12, the piano LH proceeds by leaps to a lower root for the

final V harmony. It does so, however, not by a chord tone (we might expect 2?bj)

but by the briefest final iteration o f A b j—subtly reminding us that the closing

chord is dominant, not tonic.

A Schenkerian Interpretation

In Example 4-2, much o f the information so far derived from Example 4-1 is

reformulated in a Schenkerian graph. A conservative view of this progression,

Example 4-2 does not address the ambiguity o f chords 1 and 8 (the chords are

again numbered between the staves)4 The graph does, however, clarify the

structural descent, from 3 to 2, which underlies the vocal line; the prolongation of

this descent through the cadential six-four gesture; the decoration of the static E b

bass through chromatic neighbour tones (flagged notes); and the further expansion

of the cadential figure through ancillary linear motion. We can see, for instance,

that the Kopfton (cb2) quickly becomes, in chord 1, a suspension resolving to the

final b b1. Before it resolves, it receives one central linear expansion, the vocal

4It might address this ambiguity by positing an alternative bass A b for chords 1 and (possibly) 8, this bass being transferred from an inner voice. In such a reading the chords are "consonant," rather than cadential six-fours (see Schenker 1979, 90, n. 2; Forte and Gilbert 1982, 52). Overall, then, one would assert (rephrasing my assertion of dichotomy) that chords 1 and (again, possibly) 8 are simultaneously consonant and cadential six-fours.I omit the consonant-six-four assessment from my graph as being decidedly the weaker of the two readings for these chords. Note, for instance, that the actual bass for the chords, e b, lies below the previous a b—not above, as one would expect for a consonant six-four.


Exam

ple

4-2.

So

ng

3: ha

rmon

ic pl

an,

voic

e-le

adin

g gr

aph.

6 2


63

ascent through cl| \o d \ and back, supported by chords 5 to 8.

We should notice that, in initiating this central expansion, the voice adds b i)1

to the first D minor triad (chord 5). Similarly, the voice augments the song’s only

A b-minor triads (chords 1 and 8) with another non-triadic to n e ,/l |1 Why is this9

Probing this question leads us to consider a less traditional view of tonal

relationships among some o f this song’s salient chords.

Newer Harmonic Relationships

Returning to Example 4-1 let us now consider the pc set-class labels assigned

to some chords We find that, including the vocal pitches, the chords involved m

the song’s modulation pattern are mainly forms o f set class 4-27. Chords 1 and 5,

the opening sonorities of the A b-minor and D-minor regions, both represent this set

class in its “original” form Mediating between these two are chords 3 and 4,

inversionally equivalent forms of the same class (labelled 4-27i). Especially

intriguing are the symmetrical patterns of pc invariance among chord 1, chord 3

(whose central role in the modulation we already know), and chord 5 I make the

symmetry evident in Figure 4-1, a table o f pcs shared among the three harmonies.

Pc 11 (C b / B I)) is the only one common to all three chords It has a symmetrical

relationship with pc 5 (F 1)), which just chords 1 and 5 share. We can see from the

table that these two pcs a tritone apart exchange “chord positions” each pc has a

turn at being the third above one chordal root and the added raised sixth above the

other. (It is worth noting how the opening vocal phrase also projects pcs 11 and

5 by spanning the octave c b 1 - c b2 and closing on /lj V) Chord 3 mediates between

chords 1 and 5 by sharing their respective roots (also, of course, a tritone apart):

p~ 8 (A b /G fl) with chord 1, and pc 2 (D l|) with chord 5

In tonicizing D minor, then, Berg is not just expanding a neighbour-tone of the

dominant-function E b. He is also exploiting a newer set of pc relationships around


64

Figure 4-1. Pc invariance among chords 1,3, and 5

Chord 1 Chord 3 Chord 54-27 4-27i 4-27

[3,5,8,111 [8.11,2,41 [9,11.2,5]

11 - Cb -> 11 - B h —> 11 - B l|(3 above root) 6 above root)

5 - F t| 5 - F I |(#6 above root) (3 above root)

00 t > i

uOi00(root)

2 - Dl| —> 2 - Dll(root)

the tonic A b relationships grounded in a symmetrical partitioning of the octave

into tritones, the tritones into minor thirds. These newer relationships, projected m

symmetrical patterns o f pc invariance, seem to gain force even as the traditional,

root-based chordal functions become more ambiguous

The harmonic materials discussed so far are mostly embodied in but one of this

song’s motivic patterns. A second, linear sequence o f motives also courses through

the song’s piano part, forming for it a kind of horizontal skeleton. Turning now to

this sequence, we shall discover yet another interaction o f traditional and newer

elements of pitch structure

Linear Design

The skeleton formed by statements of the song’s linear motive is laid bare in

Example 4-3. Again a key to the conventions used in this example is in order.


Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further

reproduction prohibited

without

permission.

Example 4-3. Song 3: linear plan.

't ..3-5 17,0,11

.4 -8 17.8,0,11■ 6-Z38 10,1,2,3,

■J

L2L

■ 4-8 17.8.0.1]_____ ,ife-Z38 10.1.2.3,7.81

B

&

y b* »•>»12.3,7,81, 1

■ 6-Z38 17.8.9.10,2.31 . •7*7-6 17,8,9,10,11,2,3)

- 5*iJ

.4 -8 It0.11,3,41

.4-8 12,3,7,81

i 1 %

.6-Z6 19,10,11,2,3,41

A’II 12

4-8 12.3.7,8 f . 1 fe-23^.1L8<9J0<2 ^ 3 l_7-6 17,8,9,10,11,2.31

•»

5-20 13,4,8.10.11

66

1. Although the example shows no rhythms, bar-lines are included (with double

bar-hnes added to mark the formal divisions).

2. Only the piano part is considered; octave doublings in the piano LH are

omitted.

3. Notable pitch collections are bracketed and labelled with set-class names and

pc content.

The linear design is launched by the stem four-note motive sounded in octaves

in m. 1. The most arresting part of this motive is the downward thrust of its perfect

fourth and tritone. As Example 4-3 shows, the pitches of the four-note motive

belong to set 4-8 [7,8,0,1], its descending subset to trichord 3-5 [7,0,1J. Although

this trichord type will have a central place in songs one and four, my focus in the

present song "'ill be on larger collections initiated by the tetrachordal motive.

At the beginning of m. 2 the two strands of the piano part go their own ways

rhythmically. Both, however, extend the 4-8 motive by two rising semitones to

form hexachord 6-Z38 [0,1,2,3,7,8], The LH does so in quarter notes. The RH uses

sixteenths, then exploits the final e b1 of this hexachord to launch a second, which

is again of class 6-Z38, [7,8,9,10,2 "*], but now extended by a further semitone to

produce heptachord 7-6 [7,8,9,10,11,2,3], Beginning in m. 3, the LH once more

presents the 4-8 motive, extending it now, not by semitones, but by a rising perfect

fourth and falling perfect fifth. The set thereby formed is 6-Z38’s complement,

6-Z6 [9,10,11,2,3,4],

What is notable here is not just the class-complement relation between the two

hexachord types, but also the pitch levels at which all the statements in the A

section are made. Consider first the pitches on which the hexachords, and the RH

heptachord, begin and end (these are supplied with stems in Example 4-3). The

initial statements begin on the tonic A b and end on the dominant E b. The RH

heptachord then spans Eb to the mediant Cb. Finally the bass’s 6-Z6 statement


67

continues the line from C b to the tonic o f D minor at the beginning o f the song’s

middle section.^ So the complete chain o f statements departs from the tonic Ab,

outlines the tonic triad, and ends on the tonicized D t|.

The trio o f different hexachords here is also marked, as were the three set-class

4-27 harmonies, by an intriguing pattern of pc invariance I outline this pattern in

the table in Figure 4-2. In both set classes 6-Z38 and 6-Z6 tetrachord 4-8 is found

twice as a subset. In this song only one o f those subsets is musically prominent as

Figure 4-2 Pc invariance among the linear hexachords.

1 Hexachords Set-class 4-8 subsets

1 6-Z38 [0,1,2,3,7,8] [7,8,0,13 [2,3,7,8]

2. 6-Z38 [7,8,9,10,2,3] 12,3,7,8] [9,10,2,3]

3. 6-Z6 [9,10,11,2,3,4] 110,11,3,4] [9,10,2,3]

the motivic tetrachord: the first one listed foi each pair. Note, however, that for the

central hexachord, the two possible 4-8 subsets are [2,3,7,8] and [9,10,2,3], The

former, it turns out, is shared with hexachord 1, the latte*' with hexachord 3. So the

central set 6-Z38 may be held to mediate between the er links o f the chain not

only through its boundary pitches but also through its shared 4-8 subsets.

In the A' section (mm. 8-12), the linear pattern is recapitulated, though with

some changes and with rhythmic ce >pression. This time the first statement o f set

6-Z38, now only in the LH, is also extended by an extra semitone, to e \ . The

second, in the RH, is enlarged, as before, to cb *. The third, however, is truncated:

5The further RH repetition of the 4-8 motive in mm. 4-5 is also bounded by the dominant and tonic pitches (stated enharmonically) of Ab minor.


68

the last two notes of the 4-8 motive are simply repeated before the line descends

to £b With the bnef A b, at the end of m 11, the LH’s final statement forms

pentachord 5-20 [3,4,8,10,11] 6

We can see that the initial and final tones of the statements in this section again

outline the tonic triad. This time, however, they also include the dominant tone’s

upper neighbour (e I)) rather than its lower neighbour (D I]) Overall, the song's two

chains of linear gestures trace the same tonal design that its chordal sequence

generates harmonically. Four statements form the skeleton of the A section, leading

from A b to D l|. Another three underlie the A' section, leading this time from A b to

its concluding dominant E b.

It happens that yet another hexachord 6-Z6 turns up in the centra, measures to

link these two groups. Formed by the repeated RH “bell tones” and their chromatic

ascent in mm. 5-8, this hexachord restates the pc content o f its LH predecessor:

[9,10,11,2,3,4] In fact, the last three notes of the LH collection, E l|, Al| and Dl|

(mm. 4-6), are taken up as the opening pitches of the central set We shall later see

that this central figure held another meaning for Berg

Integrating the Harmonic and Linear Designs

In Examples 4-1 and 4-3 the harmonic and linear aspects of this song are

mostly disassociated, an approach which the dual mctwic structure of the work

allows It is obvious, however, that the two motives (and the two examples) often

6Set class 5-20 is a subset, not of hexa ’ord 6-Z6, but of 6-Z38 An A l| (pc 9) would be needed to form a set of class 6-Z38. It so happens that a !|1 is sounding, however briefly, in the RH just as the final LH collection is beginning

7One could also hold that the backbone of this piece is formed simply by the fo_r sequential statements in the LH, the first pair tracing a pattern A 1 - E b , C b - D I | ; t h e second, Ab - E l|, C b - E b. Note how the final pcs of the four statements j uxtapose E b and its lower and upper neighbours. Since the LH line is, after all, the song’s bass line, the relationship of this pattern to the harmonic design is to be expected.


69

engage the same notes Ultimately we need an integrated picture of how Berg

deploys pitch materials in this song

Example 4-4 presents such a picture It also supplements the points discussed

so far with more detailed attention to the vocal line and with consideration of some

other noteworthy pitch collections. The conventions of Example 4-4 r e as follows.

1. The example embraces every pitch in the song; I omit or some note

repetitions and octave doublings in the piano LH. Again I exclude rhythms,

though I place the notes in their proper rhythmic alignments. I include the

song’s text.

2 I carry figured-bass / roman-numeral labels and set-class labels over from

Examples 4-1 and 4-3. I augment these by other set-class labels for new

features to which 1 shall be drawing attention.

3. Most labels cover collections of contiguous pitches; I again bracket these.

4 Beams mark collections of non-contiguous pitches in the vocal line. As in

Example 4-3, I give stems to the pitches bordering the linear hexachord (and

hexachord-denved) statements.

5 The chord numbers used in examples 4-1 and 4-2 appear again between the

piano staves

We have already met the most significant features of pitch structure displayed

m this graph My comments on the graph serve briefly to place these features in

context and to mention other points of interest in the song’s pitch material. In

making these comments 1 shah follow the formal and phrase divisions of the song

Section APhrase 1, mm. 1-3

The song’s opening phrase drives forcefully towards the last beat of m. 2. This

beat marks a pou of ■urival in the piano: the end of the first linear hexachoid in


Exam

ple

4-4.

So

ng

3: in

tegr

ated

gr

aph.

70

i ' I 1I I*. 1 u♦

. . «E

• ■ iC ’g

♦TTi1

r-na,-rtiltif«T i

I— *4; I tHiI*. I.

t

>

£l i t :

■a9*

• £

Ju'£u * *0 ~

N

Jt £ ^

QC00

■kr*

£ "2*i ■ «&» I_Ml

>*

«a > i t :

I „JNv —>

> s


Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further


without

permission.

Example 4-4 (cont'd.).

H6

A'10 u

7-20 17,4,5,7,10,11,0'

und ichNlu-^hen-band, hi! - Ian schwer die Glok • ken; durch die Gas - senwan

W hi', 1.1 i>i b*

14-8 I2,3.7,B!([6-238 [7,6,1,10,2,3! | I 7-6 [7.8.4,10,11.2,1]

6-76[7,9,10,11,0,2,3,41 (AD SCHBUG)8 14

liJ 1,114-8 [10,11,3,41I 5-20 13.4.8.10.11]

= 4 8 [7,8,0,1]_______lb-Z3B [0 1.7,3,7,8)

I 7-6 [0,1,7,3,4,7.81__

i 4 -2 7 1 I 6-12 I[9 , 11 ,2 51 ( 7 .'* ,11 ,0 . 2 , 4 |

> 7-35 [11,0.2,4 5,7,9|_______

1 5-35 117.9 , 11 .2 ,4 ’

♦ *6 1

[3,1,8,111 13.4,8,10,11! [8,10,11,2.4; i 9-5 U,3,4,S,7.8,9,10,11] Piano part: 6-8 [;,B,9,l0,ll,2,3.4| i

.'I4

I I 117 Nfi

V(I)

VI tier.

Reprinted by permission o f Robert Lieuau, lkrlin

72

the LH, the heptachord in the RH. The piano lines trace the tonic tnad, openingo

on Ab, arriving on Cb and Eb. Their arrival in turn launches chord 1, the

ambiguous V(I) / 4-27 [3,5,8,11] harmony. The end of m. 2 is also the goal of the

initial vocal phrase. Example 4-4 shows that the vocal pitches on accented text

syllables in this phrase arpeggiate the same tetrachord 4-27 [3,5,8,11]. (In

addition, the vocal anacrusis which opens the song is a trichord of class 3-12 (048).

Although this whole-tone type is anomalous to these songs, it serves as a link with

the whole-tone environment of Song 2.)

Phrase 2, mm. 3-5(6)

It appears that the tonal aim of the first phrase is to establish, in both linear and

harmonic terms, the V(I) / 4-27 collection. The aim of the second is to make the

transition to the D-minor / 4-27 harmony at the beginning of m. 6. This transition

is played out harmonically in chords 1 to 5, which operate above the hexachord

6-Z6 statement in the piano LH. Chords 1 to 3 are “creeping” harmonies,

connected in sequence by the lowering of a single pitch class: 4-27 [3,5,8,11] —>

4-20 [3,4,8,11] —> 4-27i [8,11,2,4], Chords 3 to 5 are then linked in a falling-fifiths

sequence.

The arched contour of the second vocal phrase (mm. 3-5) loosely copies that

of the first. It also extends the correlation of the vocal line with its supporting

harmonies. The central gesture of this phrase is again an arpeggiation: an A b -minor

tnad upwards, a G|l-minoi triad back down, as the enharmonic shift is made. If we

augment these two triads—the first with the preceding/1]1 which appears to launch

8We additio ly see that the sixceenth note3 in the RH [m. 2] bridge its two statements of he chord 6-Z38 with two versions of tetrachord 4-5—and diet the addition of the final co1 hese 16ths produces a collection of the complementary set class, 8-5


73

the phrase, the second with the phrase’s final All1 - el)1, we again produce the

tetrachord 4-27 [3,5,8,11] of chord 1, then set 4-20 [3,4,8,11], echoing chord 2.

Section B, mm. (5)6-8

The middle section of this song is both a contrast to and a continuation of

material in the outer sections. Two features make it conspicuously different. First

is its “white-key,” diatonic atmosphere, which contradicts the heavily “flat” and

chromatic environment of the surrounding sections. Second is the stasis of its

harmony, which simply oscillates between two different chords. On the other hand,

the motivic material of the outer sections is retained, transformed, in these centred

measures. In this regard, mm. 4-5 constitute a seamless elision between sections.

In the vocal line, the descending tritone (cW - ) o f m. 2—echoing that in the 1

piano’s 4-8 motive—is broadened in mm. 4-5 into two perfect fifths (</# - g$ \

b\\l - e I]]) before being transferred back to the piano (as o l|1 - ^/l|1) in mm. 6-8.

Meanwhile the nervous chordal pattern of mm. 2-4 is rhythmically pacified in

m. 5. As the harmonies in this measure prepare the tonic of the new key region,

the voice pre-emptively begins its new phrase, rising again stepwise through the

perfect f ifth e l|1 - b \ l .

We have already considered the integration of the D-minor / 4-27 harmony

(chord 5) into the harmonic structure of this song. Also notable—because

apparently so anomalous in its tertian surrounding—-is chord 6, with which the

D-minor harmony alternates. This is one o f the two appearances in these songs of

the quartal hexachord, 6-32 [7,9,11,0,2,4], formed of superposed perfect fourths

above a bass B t|. The bass oscillation of D l| and B l|, in chords 5 -7 clearly mirrors

the vocal expansion of Al|1 - d\\2 which these chords support. The piano’s quartal

pentachord, 5-35 [7,9,11,2,4]—which in its second iteration is no longer augmented


74y

by a vocal cl| —also complements the white-note heptachord (7-35 [11,0,2,4,5,7,91)

formed by the aggregate material in section B.

Section A ', mm. 8-12

Though many of the materials from the A section reappear in the final four

measures, their rhythmic redistribution results in a different alignment between the

harmonic and linear patterns. The return of the V(I) / 4-27 harmony (chord 8) is

delayed, so that all four final harmonies occur within the last linear statement of

the piano LH. One effect of this realignment is to create space for the transitional

material in the RH in mm. 8-9. We have already seen that the repeated “bell-tones”

in mm. 6-8 and their chromatic ascent through to the end of m 8 produce a

bridging statement of hexachord 6-Z6 [9,10,11,2,3,4]. If we now carry this rising

figure to its conclusion in m. 9 we find another reason for its presence it encodes

Schoenberg’s name. It turns out that the repeated a lj1 - d \ 1 has all along been

outlining the name “Arnold”; the rising chromatic extension now encodes

“Schoenberg.”

Like the song as a whole, the A1 section is abruptly launched (on the fourth

eighth-note beat of m. 8) by another anomalous whole-tone sonority, tetrachord

4-25 [0,2,6,8], Brusquely interrupting the uneasy diatonic calm of the B section,

this chord again recalls the harmonic environment of Song 2 Otherwise it is not

integral to the harmonic design of the present song (hence its omission from the

graph of Example 4-1).

The closing measures are marked by a several other class complement relations.

When chord 2 (set 4-20 [3,4,8,11]) returns as chord 9, it is augmented by pc 10

to pentachord 5-20 [3,4,8,10,11]—the same collection formed by the I H’s final

linear statement. Meanwhile the vocal line in the A' section is designed arc ind an

interval-succession patten, (to be explored shortly), expanding in dyads from a


75

major third to a perfect fifth. The principal notes in this pattern constitute 5-20’s

complement heptachord 7-20 [3,4,5,7,10,11,0], Complements may also be found

for the 4-8 motive which has echoed throughout this' piece, as well as its

descending 3-5 subset The song’s aggregate pitch material, from the point at

which the LH’s final pentachord begins (and the voice begins its final gesture) to

the work’s conclusion, comprises a nonachord o f type 9-5; the aggregate of just the

piano material, an 8-8 octachord.

Interval-succession Patterns

Apart from examples of equivalence and non-literal complementatioi \mong

some set classes, most of the features I have discussed so far are tonal ones:

chordal progressions, salient pcs, pc invariances among collections. Even a casual

perusal of Example 4-4, however, will suggest that Berg was also considering the

purely intervalhc disposition of his pitch materials as a source of structural design.

In Example 4-5 I pursue this suggestion. The example charts my assessment of

plausible interval-succession patterns (mostly) in the linear material of this song.

It will be apparent that some of the conventions of my previous graphs also apply

to this example. Here, however, brackets and beams embrace pitch collections

notable for their interval successions. Since these patterns operate against a

background of the chromatic scale, the intervals are labelled by integers (measuring

numbers of semitones). With a single exception, none of the interval-succession

patterns in this song is developed nearly to the degree Berg was later to favour. A

few of the patterns might even be discounted as being inherent in normal linear

movement. To my mind, however, Example 4-5 traces an embryonic stage in

Berg’s awareness of chromatically based interval design.

The patterns emerging from the example are of both kinds outlined in

Chapter 3: interval cycles and wedges. The former comprise both uni-intervallic


Exam

ple

4-5.

So

ng

3: in

terv

al-s

ucce

ssio

n pa

ttern

s.76

£2 -0

*““TiJ!

<

E

o

,4! <Niji

&

I i | I » r " | 1

cc


Repr

inte

d by

perm

issio

n of

Robe

rt I

.icna

ii. B

erlin

77

successions and some repeated two- or three-interval arrangements. Berg favours

four intervals in uni-intervallic sequences here: interval 1, principally in the final

notes of the hexachord and related statements; interval 3, among the salient pitches

of the opening vocal phrase (mm. 1-3); and intervals 5 and 7 (which belong to the

same interval class, ic 5). These last intervals are conspicuous in both voice and

piano from m. 3, throughout the B section, to m. 9 (interval 5 also forms the basis

for the B section’s quartal chords). Meanwhile the vocal line in sections A and B

is marked by several pairings of intervals 1 and 2. There is as well the opening

formation 4-4-1, which is curtailed to 4-1 at the end of the first .jhrase and is

replaced by 3-3-3-1 at the beginning of the second.

In the main, there is just one wedge pattern: the 4-5-6 expansion which marks

the song’s bold tetrachordal motive.9 This figure gives rise, however, to the work’s

only extended interval design, that of the final vocal phrase (mm. 8-11). Frequent

changes of melodic direction here bifurcate the vocal line Both its upper and lower

strands mostly proceed chromatically (interval 1), while the A-5-6 wedge figure is

worked out in note pairs between the strands and expanded to encompass interval

7 (an expansion mirrored in the LH) It must be admitted that even this, the song’s

most developed intervalhc pattern, is a rudimentary one. We shall uncover a more

systematic attention to intervalhc succession in Song 2, and a true flowering of

such designs in Song 4.

At the outset of this chapter, I mentioned that “Nun ich der Riesen Starksten

uberwand” is the least “advanced” of the Op. 2 songs, the song that seems most

allied to the common-practice tradition. The necessity in my analysis, however, for

several analytic graphs points to a multiplicity of possible meanings embedded in

the pitch materials of this song. We have seen that Berg’s handling of traditional

9I have also posited a single contracting pattern, 4-3-2, in the vocal line m m 4


78

tonal processes here is marked by ambiguity. At the same time we find newer

processes: some which partition the octave symmetrically, others which build

patterns from interval successions, still others (pc 'set equivalence and

complementation) which emerge more abstractly from intervalhc congruence What

these new processes share is a basis in the chromatic scale, rather than the diatonic,

as a primary pitch series. As we have also seen, however, the “old’' and “new”

types of pitch structure cannot be separated. Berg’s use of the complementary

hexachord classes 6-Z38 and 6-Z6 might seem new, for instance, but these

hexachords are first used to outline the tonic triad. And—to choose just one other

example—the song’s first block harmony functions both (ambiguously) in a

traditional way and as part of a pattern of class 4-27 collections In Song 2, the

subject of the following chapter, Berg explores the convergence of the “old” and

the “new” in a different way, blending common-practice relationships with those

traceable to the whole-tone scale.


CHAPTER 5

SONG 2, “Schlafend tragt man mich in mein Heimatland”

We tum from the least familiar of these songs to the most familiar. Even before

Craig Ayrey published his analysis of “Schlafend tragt man mich in mein

Heimatland'" (Ayrey 1982) this song had gained some currency in discussions of

Berg's early music. Hans Redlich may have been the first to draw attention to the

systematic pitch design of its opening measures and their close relationship to a

passage in Song 4 (Redlich 1957, 42-44). George Perle later cited both passages

as the earliest examples of Berg’s interest in “interval cycles” (Perle 1977a, 3;

1985, 161-162). Ayrey's study, however, brought the whole piece into focus, and

the song’s austere harmonic design has since made it a ready subject for analysis

seminars in early twentieth-century music. Furthermore—in a reflection o f both the

aim and the influence of Ayrey’s essay—this song is usually taken to embody the

confluence of, or the dichotomy between, tonal and atonal methods of pitch

structure. It is confluence, rather than dichotomy, upon which I wish to lay

emphasis in my following analysis.


In Alfred Mombert’s Der Gluhende cycle “Schlafend tragt man mich” directly

precedes “Nun ich der Riesen Starksten iiberwand,” set by Berg in Song 3.

“Schlafend tragt man mich” is again a dream ffagment, the poet’s return home

again its central image. Here, however, the dream is almost devoid o f action: the

sleeping poet is borne home from afar “. . iiber Gipfel, iiber Schliinde, / iiber ein

79


80

dunkles Meer.” The repetition of “iiber” and the echoing of the phrase “in mein

Heimatland” are both hypnotic and obsessive, and the landscape images are

ominous. Mombert’s languid dream is an incipient nightmare

Although the overlapping flow of motives smoothly elides the musical phrases,

Berg's setting may again be parsed as a ternary form, allied to the text as follows.

A phrase 1 mm. 1-4 Schlafend tragt man michm mein Heimatland.

interlude mm. 4-8 B phrase 2 mm. 9-13 Feme komm’ ich her,

iiber Gipfel, iiber Schliinde,A' phrase 3 mm. 13-18 iiber ein dunkles Meer

in mein Heimatland.

As in Song 3, section A' is again defined by the return of material from the song’s

initial measures. The voice drifts into an expanded restatement of its opening

phrase in m. 13 and finds its original pitch level one measure later. The piano then

quickly recapitulates its opening chords in mm. 15-18, compressing their rhythm.

As will become clear, the E section displays elements of contrast tc the two outer

divisions, yet it shaies with them its underlying motivic materials.

It is again possible to trace most of the material in this song to two motivic

gestures. In this case both gestures are melodic, and both are fairly malleable. They

are also commingled at times (especially in the song’s middle section) and are

related in their pitch structures.

The song’s opening phrase, reproduced in Example 5-la, exposes both motives

The first to enter is not immediately recognizable as melodic because it sits atop

the piano’s chords. The initial five notes of this figure—from / b 3 to g \>2—form its

core, to which various continuations are appended. In its original appearance, in

alternating half and quarter notes, the continuation is of descending semitones. The

sor ^’s B section embraces two more statements of the motive, transferred to the


81

Example 5-1.

a: Song 2, mm. 1-4. rfTpp ..... ... .

Schla- fend tragt man mich in mein

l£____ I 1 ______ i ie___ |gwo------

Hei - mat - land, i f _______ IlL J

a&-sV

pp

P p

b: Pitch structure o f motives.

4-25 15,7,11,1]

I 3-3 [ 7 , 10.1116-Z44 |10,11,0,3,4,7] / (SC [H] B [E] G) /

3-3 10,3,4] 3-8 [0,4,6]

10-5 [321

c: mm. 4-9.4

fL



82

voice and rhythm ically compressed, the first is transposed down an octave

(mm. 9-10, doubled by the piano LH), the second is lowered a further semitone

(mm. 11-12). This vocal sequence is shadowed by two more statements in the

piano RH (mm. 10-11 and 12-13) In the figure's final appearance (piano RH,

mm. 15-18), both its pitch level and its rhythm are borrowed from the vocal

statement in mm. 9-10

The second motivic gesture encompasses the opening vocal phrase This phrase

is then variously fractured to generate a collection of smaller elements (biacieetfcJ

and labelled “a” through “g” in Example 5-la) which echo throughout the song

The piano’s interlude (s*;e Example 5-lc) is built from sequential entries of

elements “f ’ (mm. 4-5) and “a” (mm. 4-7), the latter of which is truncated to “b”

in a canon between the hands (mm. 7-8). Discernible in mm. 8-9 are elements “e’‘

and “c” (in the RH) and “d” and “g” (in the LH). These mixed motivic elements

also generate most of the material in the B and A' sections not already derived

from die song’s first motive.

The two large motives betray careful and related intervalhc designs Moreover

some of the features they share serve to introduce a crucial aspect of the song’s

pitch structure. Example 5-lb isolates the pitch content of both motives in their

initial appearances. It is possible to read the piano’s pentachordal motive as a

central tertian triad bordered by semitones—a feature that will prove influential to

harmonic design in the B section. If, however, we segregate the accented tones in

this figure (the beamed notes)1 we obtain whole-tone trichord 3-8 [0,4.o], from

field WT-0. Meanwhile the vocal phrase may be partitioned into four elements

(those already labelled “c,” “d,” “e,” and “g” in Example 5-la) Elements “c” and

“e” are inversionally equivalent dyads: both are members of ic 4 These leaps

1 These are the pitches in half notes in mm. 1-3: they are set to accented text syllables in the central vocal sequence (mm 9-13).


OF/DEm

Is

PM-1 3Vi'V i ” PHOTOGRAPHIC MICROCOPY TARGET NBS 1010a ANSI/ISO #2 EQUIVALENT

I .O

l.l

U - 1 2 8 1 2 5jso P SB i

»- 1 ^ 12.2•a 1 m

I “I- -kbu

1.8^ I

125 111,4 j|j^

PRECISION8*1 RESOLUTION TARGETS


83

alternate with two descending trichords, the first of whole tones (“d”), the second

of semitones (“g”). Together the two dyads constitute whole-tone tetrachord

4-25 [5,7,11,1], from field WT-1. The boundary pitches of the stepwise elements

form another trichord of class 3-8, [6,10,0] from WT-0. We note further that the

3-8 trichords of the two motives combine to yield another tetrachord of class 4-25,

[4,6,10,0], The interaction here of the two whole-tone fields—and their

representation by set class 4-25 and its only trichordal subset, class 3-8—will prove

to be central features of this song’s pitch organization

Example 5-lb discloses another feature in this initial appearance of the two

motives The first three notes of each motive state trichords of set class 3-3;

sounding together as they do, these trichords form hexachord

6-Z44 [10,11,0,3,4,7]—another literal encryption of Schoenberg’s name We r..ay

make two comparisons with the encoded signature already found in Song 3. First,

two of the pitches in the present signature are misspelled C b and F b take the place

of the expected B l| and E I) (the H and E in “Schonberg”). The spellings Berg has

chosen do make sense in the context of the song’s key, E b minor “ In fact, Berg

appears to have been thinking both in terms of traditional key functions and—since

the signature is surely intentional—in terms of pc content. Second, this signature

seems confined to Schoenberg’s last name, without the preceding A I) -D i) to outline

the word “Arnold ” Song 1, however, ends with a bass oscillation on just these two

tones (indeed, they are focal pcs in that song), so the full signature is again

present, bridging the two songs. (We may note in passing that the decachord

formed by the combined pc content of both motives lacks only these same two pcs.

And, before turning away from musical signatures, we may look ahead to the two

final bass notes of Song 2: A I) and E b, Schoenberg’s initials.)

2C b is the sixth degree of the scale F b is the flattened fifth degree in the openingV7/b5 chord.


84

Ayrey’s Analysis

This chapter is not a critique of Ayrey’s analysis of “Schlafend tragt man mich”

(Ayrey 1982). As the only detailed and complete published analysis of any of the

Four Songs, however, Ayrey s study deserve some comment here This is

especially so since I have found many of Ayrey’s observations perceptive and

influential to my own inquiry, and because issues of tonality and atonality also

form the basis for his analysis.

In a crucial way Ayrey’s approach prefigures my own, for he finds a

juxtaposition of tonal and atonal contexts in this song.

Is the song a mutation of functional tonality in which features of the progemtal system are perceptible or even present as a high-level structure, or is it a primal example of new techniques of tonal organization. . ? Both readings, I think, are valid and in this particular case create a tension of harmonic meaning that is definitive. The first Mombert song of Op. 2 is part of the limited repertory, but unique in Berg, that can tolerate a double historical focus: its ambiguity is in fact an essential strategy in the play of interpretants constituting the peculiar multivalence of the piece as a signifying structure (189-190)

Ayrey s premises diverge from mine, however, in that he construes “tonal” and

“atonal” differently. Although he does not make explicit his understanding of these

terms, his analysis implies a Schenkenan perception of tonality. Implied in turn is

a breach between what may be tonal and what must be atonal.

It turns out that the true “tonality” Ayrey finds in this song derives solely from

its connection with Song 3 (a connection I shall explore towards the end of my

own analysis). Within Song 2 itself the pitch organization is not explicable as

“tonal,” for the harmonic vocabulary is insufficiently traditional. Ayrey’s analysis

seeks therefore to find an alternative structural paradigm. The model he develops

is hierarchical—and embodied in fore-, middle-, and background graphs—but its

controlling structure is “atonal” rather than Schenkerian (198-199). Although there


85

are traditional aliusions, these are “structural puns7’; they serve to articulate the

pitch structure without generating i t 3

Despite his finding that the structural determinants ~of this song are not

traditional, Ayrey claims prolongational status for the hierarchical features he

describes The contextual nature of these features might better fit them to be

considered (in Straus s term) “associational ” In addition, Ayrey does not often

make explicit the contextual bases for hts analytic decisions Some of these are

easily inferred and appear quite sound; others seem more obscure or inconsistent.

As my own analysis proceeds, I shall refer to aspects of Ayrey’s model, as well

as to the more fragmentary analyses of others. All of these studies agree in finding

the key to the song’s pitch structure in its predominant chord type Likewise my

present attempt to chart tonality and atonality in this song will begin by

considering the characteristics of this type, set class 4-25

The 4-25 Chord

We have already met set class 4-25 (0268) as a feature of pitch design in this

song’s motives. What has brought the piece to the attention of theorists is that its

harmonic life is also rooted obsessively in this single set type, the properties of

which deeply influence the song’s pitch organization. We recall from Chapter 2

that Schoenberg considers 4-25 a “vagrant” sonority (Schoenberg 1978, 255-256

and example 189), its chief traditional roles are as an altered dominant chord

(V7/t*5) and as a “French” augmented sixth (F r+6/4/3), but it is also a whole-tone

collection. Tetrachord 4-25 is an especially symmetrical set type: it may be

formulated as a pair of dyads of ic 2 or of ic 4 related by a tritone (ic 6).

Example 5-2 illustrates some results of this symmetry. Set class 4-25 has only six

3The lei.n “structural pun” is one Ayrey quotes from Benjamin (1977, 58-59). Straus(1987, 15) later uses the term “middleground pun” for the same concept


86

Example 5-2. Properties o f set class 4-25 (0268).

a: b:

fl\i n<li ^ rtp i c;i ii :j1 2 3 4 5 6

12,4,8,10] [0,2,6,81 14,6,10,0][1,3,7,91 15.7.11,11 [3,5,9,11]

W T- 0 1 0 1 0 1

1[2,4.8,101

0

1 2 1 2[2,4.8,10] 12,4,8,10]

|1,3,7,9[ [1,3,7,91

0 1 0 1

pc-variant members; these are illustrated, in a chromatically descending sequence,

in Example 5-2a. I have numbered the variant sets from 1 to 6, listed their pc

content, and indicated to which of the two whole-tone fields they belong. As

Example 5-2a shows, a set of class 4-25 is invariant when transposed by a tntone:

lowering the set a further semitone from chord 6 returns chord 1. Likewise, as

shown in Example 5-2b, transposition by a semitone and by a perfect fifth in the

same direction again produces invariant sets.4 Berg puts these properties to work

in Song 2

An Overview of Pitch Structure

Example 5-3 is a profile of this song's overall pitch design; some details of the

points it raises will be fleshed out in later examples The present example has five

main components:

1. A complete bass line. I have stemmed bass pitches to which I shall be drawing

attention.

4Douglas Jarman notes that set-class 4-2S shares these symmetrical properties with only two other tetrachord classes: 4-9 (0167) and 4-28 (0369)—both also construable as pairs of identical dyads related by a tritone. Berg later used 4-9 and 4-28 as “Basic Cells'’ in his opera Lulu (Jarman 1987, 285). See also Perle 1989.


Exam

ple

5-3.

So

ng

2: ov

ervi

ew.

87

KLT

KIT

O *>


Repr

inted

by

perm

issio

n of

Robe

rt I

.iena

u, B

erlin

88

2. Harmonic pitches above many bass notes. Most are in their proper registers; a

few notes in section B have been shifted for graphic clarity. The few pitches

which are not part of whole-tone collections are shown as cue-size notes.

3. A listing of the harmonies’ set-class names. In labelling the many 4-25

harmonies, I have used the bold-italic numbers (1-6) from Example 5-2. I have

also omitted pitches for the majority of these chords (but usually included them

for chords of sets 1 and 2). Just below the labels for non-whole-tone sets in

mm. 9-12 1 have named (parenthetically) their conspicuous whole-tone subsets.

4 Below each whole-tone set number, an indication of whether the set comes

from field WT-0 or WT-1

5 A few roman-numeral and figured-bass analytic labels. Those whose status is

especially conjectural are in parentheses.

In Example 5-3 tonal and atonal contexts, and traditional and whole-tone

materials, are cast in complementary roles. Much *>f the pitch organization of this

song hinges upon the inherent symmetnes and invariance profiles of set-class 4-25,

yet Berg exploits these to support a recognizably traditional background design. To

assemble a model of this design we shall make three quick passes through the

example, focussing first on the bass line, then on atonal aspects of the 4-25 chords,

and finally on their tonal implications.

The Bass Line

As in Song 3, much of the bass voice leading here is composed of perfect-

fourth / perfect-fifth and stepwise movement (both slurred in the example). This

bass line implies a tonal structure that once again lies within common-practice

conventions. Moreover these implications are supoorted by other aspects of the

song’s design: tonic and dominant bass pitches reliably appear at contextually


89

important locations. This being so, we may propose that the bass line unfolds the

following tonal programme.

The song’s A section presents a two-octave coupling (marked by a dotted slur)

of the opening dominant, B b j to the b b in m. 7. (The latter pitch appears just where

a close canon between the piano lines breaks down.) This coupling motion is

mediated by another, single-octave coupling: of the E\\ in m. 4 (at the end of the

first phrase) to the e \ at the beginning of m. 7 (where the harmonic rhythm

changes for the first time). The bb of m. 7 falls stepwise to a tonic eb in m. 9, at

the beginning of the second vocal phrase. The rest of the B section sees e b earned

through another coupling to Eb in m. 12, this descent mediated by a stepwise fall

to B b in the previous measure. In the A' section is another stepwise descent to B b t

(m. 15), at which point the song’s opening circle of fifths returns. Combined with

more semitonal motion, this circle carries the line swiftly through a final octave

transfer of the dominant before concluding on the tonic Eb.

Overall, then, this bass line implies two dominant-to-tonic motions The fust

is extended by registral couplings across the A and B sections. The second is

prepared and quickly traversed in the A' section. At the background level,

presumably, lies a single such motion—the most basic of all common-practice

resolutions.

The 4-25 Chords: Atonal Design

Berg does not support the bass design with a common-practice harmonic

language. Instead, many of the chords are whole-tone sonorities, and most are sets

of class 4-25. Some of these 4-25 chords may be held to project traditional

functions. More obviously, however, Berg exploits the symmetrical properties of

this whole-tone tetrachord.


90

The set names in Example 5-3 reveal two clear patterns in Berg’s deployment

of 4-25 harmonies. First, it is in the A and A' sections where these harmonies are

ubiquitous. As in Song 3, Berg uses harmonic vocabulary to define the song’s

ternary form. Part of the formal contrast provided by the B section springs from

its release from an exclusively whole-tone harmonic idiom—while part of its

affinity to the outer sections results from retaining strong vestiges of that idiom.

Second, Berg orders the 4-25 harmonies in consistent chromatic sequences

across the outer sections. A complete downward cycle—running through all variant

sets and returning to set 1—is arrayed above the circle-of-fifths bass pattern which

spans the opening phrase (mm. 1-4). In the piano interlude the sequence is

reversed. It now ascends through an entire cycle, again reaching set / in m. 7. At

this point a transition into section B begins: the pattern is again reversed but also

destabilized. The harmonic rhythm quickens in mm. 7 and 8 from two chords per

measure to three, yet the underlying sequence is retarded. Two chords of set /,

related by an exchange of dyad pairs, begin and end m. 7; two analogous chords

of set 2 (separated by the song’s first non-whole-tone harmony) occupy m. 8.

Instability overtakes the sequence as section B begins, and it breaks off after chord

3 just as the bass achieves the tonic.

As the vocal line wanders back to its opening gesture in m. 13 the sequence of

4-25 chords also resumes—curiously with set 4, where it had broken off. Delayed

by repetition, the sequence again reaches chord 1 at the beginning o f m. 15. The

compressed return of the opening bass pattern then carries the harmonies rapidly

through a final, descending cycle The song’s closing chords are sets / and 2,

duplicating its opening pair.


91

The 4-25 Chords: Tonal Design

The reliance on a single set class and the patterned disposition of its sets are

forceful elements for atonal order. It is clear, however, that Berg also employs the

4-25 chords to support the tonal design implied by the bass. We recall from

Chapter 3 that the correlation of the two whole-tone fields carries an analogy to the

fifth-relations of common-practice harmony, Berg exploits this analogy as he

guides chord 4-25 through its chromatic transpositions. Adjacent chords lie

alternately in each of the whole-tone fields, and Berg uses rhythmic accent to

produce imbalances between the fields. Throughout the first two sequences

(mm. 1-7) he clearly favours WT-0—the field to which the dominant B b belongs.

Sets of this field occupy the initial two thirds of each measure. Set 1 is accorded

special prominence as the boundary set of the sequences. In its initial statement,

above B b j, set 1 can plausibly be held to function as V7/b5 in the key of E b minor.

The reappearance of this set, identically disposed, above the b b at the end of m . 7

again suggests a register transfer—and also a transfer of dominant

function—between the two chords. Berg then keeps the set active through its

medial appearances in m. 4 and at the beginning o f m. 7 (the E I] and e l| bass tones

symmetrically dividing the overall bass ascent across the two sequences).

In m. 8 the accent is shifted for the first time to chord 2, a set from field WT-1,

and a set that includes the tonic Eb. We might well expect that Berg will now

enhance the tonic’s prominence through a continued focus on WT-1. To a degree,

this expectation is met: what whole-tone components there are in the B section

pertain almost exclusively to WT-1. As we shall see, however, these components

are alloyed with reminiscences of triadic harmony and clouded by close imitation

between voice and piano.

Although WT-0 reappears at the end of m. 13, only the bass’s return to B b j two

measures later brings this field back to rhythmic prominence. As the final sequence


92

recapitulates and compresses *he coupling motion of mm. 1-7, chord 1 reclaims the

role of dominant. The role of closing tonic is this time claimed by another 4-25

chord, a final appearance of WT-1 set 2. This altered seventh chord cannot wholly

provide a traditional tonic resolution. As we shall discover, much of its function

is projected outside the song, to the beginning of Song 3.

Treble-Bass Models

The Schenkerian paradigm of tonal design is a two-voice, treble-bass

counterpoint (mediated, of course, by harmony). By comparison the model we have

just fashioned in Example 5-3 lacks a hierarchical treble structure matching the

bass scheme with which we began. Can one be found here, matching the one we

found for Song 3 (see Example 4-2)? Not, I think, with certainty. Faced with this

song’s peculiar harmony and its pc invariances, our judgements about privileged

pcs in the treble can in some cases only be suggestive. In Example 5-4 I offer not

one but two suggestions. Although both models look superficially Schenkerian, I

must stress that salient pitches in both are contextually associated, not traditionally

prolonged. The first model, Example 5-4a, is the one I confess to favouring. The

second is essentially that proposed by Ayrey (1982, 198-199).5

It will be noticed that the A section looks the same in both models. Here I think7/k 5 -»the basic pattern is clear: the retention of chord / (V ) through register transfer.

5The background (stemmed) bass and treble notes in Example 5-4t are equivalent to those in Ayrey's background model. His graph includes the harmonies mediating ''ese notes, and it does not include functional chord symbols.

A comparison of Ayrey’s middle- and foreground graphs with my Example 5-3 is a. so instructive. Ayrey’s account of how whole-tone scale segments are projected lineariy throughout the song seems especially detailed and powerful. However, the contextual data often fail clearly to support Ayrey’s judgements here. Given the 4-25 patterns Berg is using, linear whole-tone patterns are always detectable among groups of alternate chords. Except in a few passages (notably mm. 4-7), however, Berg does not arrange his chords clearly to stress such patterns.


Example 5-4. Song 2: treble-bass models.

93

1 4

B7 8 9

A'11 12 15 ’b 17

a:i»2

?2

f e l t|* ^

b:8>»-----

wmA—

!!>S

97

1.5

ek

7 ■ 5 c

V ^ak

Both models also mark the outer-voice descent to the tonic in m. 9 as a signal

event (one distinguished on the surface by double chromatic approaches to the E b).

At this point the models diverge. Example 5-4a stresses the recapitulation—now

in both treble and bass—of the previous tonal motion in mm. 15-18. This model

is the more tonally conservative, matching the background harmonic motion with

an overall treble motion, \>2 - \ (and associating the upward registral shifts of both

dominant chords T./ith downward shifts of b2). Model 5-4b, by comparison, projects


94

something of the symmetry of set-class 4-25 to the outer lines. As the bass rises

a perfect fourth so the treble falls, chromatically, a perfect fifth, and the voices

begin and end with the tritone interval—the axis of class 4-25’s symmetry. We

might object, however, that this model fails to suppor* aM prominent treble pitches

with significant events in the bass. Ultimately, 1 believe, we do not have to choose

between these two models. They capture complementary elements of pitch

organization projected by the 4-25 harmonies, elements which coalesce and sustain

each other.

Sectional Analysis

Examples 5-3 and * \ have exposed in some detail the overall contexts in

which the pitch materials of this song operate. Numerous local components remain

to be added, however, especially for the more complex harmonic environment of

the B section. Incorporating these details will be the task of analytic graphs for

each of the song’s four formal units.


This song’s initial phrase has been thoroughly scrutinized in many other

sources6—all agreeing on its structure and significance—so it requires little

elaboration here. Example 5-5 tracks the pitch content of these measures and

includes some of the findings from Example 5-lb about the song’s two motives.

Nowhere in the Op. 2 songs have theorists found the confrontation between

tonality and atonality (however defined) more starkly embodied than in this phrase.

Read against the norms of common-practice harmony the progression here is a

6See Redlich 1957, 42-44; Perle 1977, 3; 1985, 161-162; Jarman 1987, 285-286; Straus 1990, 84-88; Metz 1991, 3-5, Morgan 1991b, 85-86.


95

Example 5-5. Song 2; mm. 1-4.A1 2 3 4

4

\tm......i ........■; I ....... . ' ”r" .......S* ' ' . rm..I *9------ v —\tm— ^ --------- ;—l_------ j j? !•I

3-8

| - W —— 1Tm.------

^ r r .. - >-«-------Li ----------- - f r r = r r

!i

Ll», L 1 ■

- t p - -■

■ 3-8, 3-8 ,i

V - — — - i

i3-8 i i 3-8 ■

T ’ ‘ ----

a m------------ ----------------.

3-8 13 -81

V — - - - - 4

3-8

/ 1

—i--------- ——t~b * |

2

^ -------------- ----------~

3 J 4 5 61

1

I 5*28 | I 5-33

WT- 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

i 7 i 7 i 7l>5 t5 tSet: V ^ V =, V ^ etc.

Reprinted by permission o f Robert Lienau. Berlin

series of applied V7/1,5 chords, only a slight variation on the applied V7 sequence.7

At the same time, Perle (1977, 3; 1985, 161-162) found in this phrase the earliest

example of those atonal interval cycles which were to become a mainstay of Berg’s

music. We have already found fledgling interval-succession patterns in Song 3, but

the formations pursued here are a good deal more rigorous As Perle notes, the

chromatic sequence of 4-25 chords can be read as a projection of three uni-

intervallic cycles: descending semitones in the upper voices; rising perfect fourths

7Though Redlich (1957, 42-43) identified the applied dominant nature of the chords here, most subsequent writers have curiously labelled them “French sixth” chords.


96

(descending perfect fifths) in the bass, and, embodied more abstractly in the chord

type itself, the whole-tone scale

Admittedly the pitches in these cycles are not always consistently disposed.

Even in this fact, however, there hides a certain balance in the seven-chord

sequence Up to its midpoint, chord 4, the piano’s treble motive imposes irregular

voice leading on the upper parts, while the bass is consistent in rising perfect

fourths. At chord 4 the bass changes direction and the RH voice-leading becomes

uniformly chromatic (see Straus 1990, 86-87). The pattern’s mid-point is further

marked by the appearance of the median set 4 in the leaps of the vocal line.

(Although this set, [5,7,11,1], lends support to WT-1 in a predominantly WT-0

neighbourhood, it notably lacks two WT-1 pcs: A I) and Eb—the cryptic pcs that

later underpin the song’s final harmony )

Set-class 4-25’s only trichordal subset, class 3-8, naturally makes numerous

appearances in most of the RH chords (and sometimes in the full piano part) as

well as in the song’s motives Conversely the only “dissonant” tone in the whole-

tone environment here is the initial vocal c b . As we have seen, this tone is crucialQ

to the Schoenberg signature shared between the opening motives.

Piano interlude, mm. 4-8

In the pianc mteriude Berg propels the music with growing intensity towards

the next vocal entry in m. 9. Increases in dynamic level and tempo animate this

passage (Berg sets mm. 5-14 in a faster “Tempo II” and accelerates even from this

tempo in mm. 6-8 ) Borrowing motivic elements from the opening vocal phrase,

Berg drives them through an ascending sequence, develops a close canon in

Metz (1991, 7) connects the design of this phrase—in which the last chord is invariant with the first—with the word “Heimatland” ("homeland”). Straus (1990, 87) further suggests that the opening vocal c b , a “non-chord tone,” is “away from home.”


97

mm. 6-8, and gradually splinters the motives from m. 6 onwards (see

Example 5-lc).

If the previous harmonic sequence could be ascribed common-practice

functions, its reversal in the interlude cannot: nsing-fifths sequences of altered

chords find no place in traditional tonality. Berg does, however, project ascending

interval patterns here quite clearly. Jarman (1987, 286) points out that the

partitioning of 4-25 harmonies here differs from that in the opening phrase. There

the chords seemed disposed as pairs of tritones; here they are pairs of major-

third / minor-sixth dyads. In Example 5-6 the stemmed (and beamed) notes are

those belonging to the 4-25 chords. We can see that throughout most of the

ascending sequence (mm. 4-6), major-third and minor-sixth dyads alternate within

each hand and between the hands, each successive measure shifting this alternation

a whole tone higher. By the middle of m. 6 disruptive elements begin to unsettle

the pattern. As the short-lived canon at the minor ninth develops between the

hands, the disposition of the dyads becomes clouded. The main body of the canon,

in m. 7, marks the arrival of the sequence back at set I. From this point on the

distortions of harmonic rhythm, the dissolution of the canon, and the further

fracturing of motives serve to augment the music’s intensity. Extra pitches, which

have been present from the outset, begin seriously to obscure the clarity of the

4-25 chords. Mostly these extra tones are other members of the whole-tone scales,

but in m. 8, the first non-whole-tone sonority—a tertian triad (in cue-size notes in

the example)—makes a passing appearance.

Section B, mm. 9-13

Berg marked the central measures of Song 3 by simplifying his harmonic

vocabulary, turning from chromatic “creeping” sonorities to diatonic and repetitive

ones. In the B section of Song 2 he does the opposite, complicating and obscuring


Exam

ple

5-6.

So

ng

2: m

m.

4-9.

98

r>.Ln


99

the harmonic idiom, a process he began in the piano interlude. Example 5-7 maps

the co-existence in these measures of some conflicting patterns of pitch

organization.

In mm. 8-9 the song’s initial motives are reassigned Borrowing the piano’s

five-note gesture, the voice condenses it rhythmically and states it twice in

sequence. Its two statements are intertwined with two others in the piano RH. (The

boundary pitches o f the motivic statements are beamed together in Example 5-7.)

All four statements are smoothly linked. The voice’s first one lies at the motive’s

original pc level, and its second overlaps with motivic material from the following

A' section. This latter statement also shares its boundary pcs with the surroundingo

piano statements.

The rhythm of these statements defines a new harmonic rhythm. Replacing the

original half-quarter pattern dissolved in mm. 7-8 is a pattern of dotted-quarter

values which confounds the triple metre. Moreover, where the harmonic shifts

previously embodied the two different whole-tone fields, they now feature—though

not with perfect clarity—two different harmonic genres. The first half of each

measure retains strong whole-tone components. Except at the borders o f the section

(mm. 9 and 13), however, the whole-tone collections are impure. They are also all

confined to field WT-1, the “tonic-containing” field. (In Example 5-7 all full-size

notes are those belonging to whole-tone collections. These subset collections are

labelled parenthetically below the bracketed set names.) In the measures’ second

halves whole-tone content is either absent (in mm. 10, 12) or less strongly felt (in

mm. 9, 11). Instead, guided by the central triads of the five-note motive, Berg uses

tertian triads (sets o f class 3-11)—an ironic way to add complexity to a harmonic

palette! Though sounding vaguely traditional, the triads are usually mingled with

9The boundary pitches of the vocal statements also project the contrary meanings of the words they set: “Feme / her” (“far / here”); “Gipfel / Schlunde” (“mountain / ravine”).


Exam

ple

5-7.

So

ng

2: m

m.

9-13

.

100

ffi

CN

©


Repr

inte

d by

perm

issio

n of

Robe

rt L

iena

u. B

erlin

101

other pitches, and they are certainly not tonally functional in their present context.

They are therefore divorced from the strongly directed bass line with its octave

transfer of the tonic E b. The one—cmcial—time when all components coalesce is

at the initial bass resolution to e b in m. 9. The interlude’s sequence of major thirds

comes to a (staggered) resolution above this tonic, approaching E b-G dyads both

from above (RH and voice) and below (LH). This dyad seems to imply both an

incomplete tonic triad and, as set-class 2-4 [3,7], whole-tone field WT-1.10

Section A', mm. 13-18

As in Song 3, the A' section of Song 2 features not simply the reversion to

opening material, but also its temporal realignment. In Example 5-8 the main

feature of this realignment is evident. The vocal line restates its original gesture but

in expanded form. Much of its material now appears before, rather than during, the

piano’s recapitulation o f its falling-fifths sequence.

In fashioning the closing vocal phrase Berg again exploits the symmetry of set-

class 4-25 at the tritone. When the opening vocal gesture returns in m. 13 it is

down a tritone from its initial position. Because of this, the b i| - g l|1 sixth at the9 1beginning of m. 14 inverts the song’s opening leap, cb - glj . The phrase then

continues at its original pitch level (and restates its original text).

Set 4, around which the vocal line builds its expanded presentation, mirrors the

harmony with which the piano resumes its focus on set-class 4-25 in mm. 13-14.

Field WT-1 predominates rhythmically in these two measures, and until m. 15 the

4-25 chords are expanded by other whole-tone members (the cue-size notes in

Example 5-8). The bass’s arrival on ffbj in m. 15 launches the restatement of the

10Ayrey (1982, 1 ">2-193) refers to this measure’s “almost explicit Eb major chord,” which he takes to represent “feme,” as opposed to the song’s whole-tone “Heimatland.”


Exam

ple

5-8.

So

ng

2: m

m.

13-1

8.

!

“I ',-Tlij

Hi*

I

II 11

I: 11i l lT S- •s

s

J Hi k-fw 1

>4 N

-t*s- '!: # J i

#*iii

MA !

rf* !

I

-Jq« "I"J


Rep

rinte

d by

perm

issi

on

of R

ober

t Li

enau

, B

erlin

103

opening chordal sequence.11 This sequence also returns the initial five-note motive

to the piano—but now with the compressed rhythm given to it in m. 9 by the

voice. Despite the lhythmic change field WT-0 still predominates through mm. 15

and 16, and only gives way in the final resolution to chord 2 in m. 17.

The Linking of Songs 2 and 3

The song’s final chord 2, though appearing over a tonic bass, does not yield a

typical tonic resolution; rather it is one of the features that Berg uses to bind Songs

2 and 3 into something of a central unit for the Op. 2 cycle. The other features are

clearly evident. The final measure of Song 2 has but two of its three beats; the last

beat is supplied (after a fermata) by the anacrusis of Song 3. Into the space

bridging the songs Berg introduces the unbalanced rhythmic figure that will play

a central role in Song 3 (see Examples 3-lb and c)

Song 3 also generates much of the functional meaning for Song 2’s final

harmony As Song 2’s opening chord 1 can be read as V of Eb minor, its

closing chord 2 serves as V7/b5 of Song 3’s A b minor, to which it resolves in the11 1 latter’s opening phrase. In addition, Berg drops the vocal a l| from chord 2 in

m. 18. The remaining trichord, set 3-8 [1,3,7], is a more traditional incomplete V7

Furthermore trichord 3-8 is a both whole-tone subset of Song 2’s tetrachord 4-25,

as well as a subset of Song 3’s central harmonic type, tetrachord 4-27.

1 'Berg scholars generally agree that there axe two misprints in the piano RH part in m. 15: the b l|1 in the third cuord should be a | 1, and the c l|1 in the final chord should be c b1. (Berg corrected the second, but not the first, of these mistakes in his own copy; see Kett 1989, 87, n. 23.) I have corrected both in Example 5-8.

12This function in turn casts another light back on chord / as it occurs in m. 16 of Song 2, with E l| in the bass. This chord might now assume the other functional guise of set 4-25, as a (misspelled) French sixth.


Having examined the manuscripts, Rockmaker speculates that the idea of

coupling Songs 2 and 3 is one that occurred to Berg only after he had already

sketched the songs. “He then added the distinctive motive and dominant-sounding

harmony at the end of song 2. and changed the ending of song 3 so that there is

a return to the harmonic center of song 2” (Rockmaker 1990, 5-6). This would

explain why Berg does not integrate the motivic and harmonic designs of the songs

more closely. Afterthought or not, however, the linkage and the strong dominant

(and weak tonic) emphasis we have already noted in Song 3 suggest that E b may

indeed serve as an overall tonal centre for the pair. Example 5-9 embodies this

suggestion in a background sketch. This sketch focusses on the harmonic outlines

and avoids an (I suspect vain) attempt to trace a connecting Urlinie for the songs.13

Example 5-9. Overall tonality of Songs 2 and 3.

#

Song 215 17

Song 3 11

3 |*! n.

r1.5

ek

u k{

V I=V

6 4

IV 1

85

,3Both Ayrey (1982, 192) and Kett (1989, 82) also produce outlines of the pair’s overall Eb tonality.


105

Douglas Jarman (1987, 285) terms Song 2 “perhaps the most ingenious and the

most forward-looking of [Berg’s] early works,” noting its “characteristically

Bergian combination of rigorous technical procedures and emotional spontaneity .”

The alliance of symmetrical interval patterns and cycles with overt tonal

referents—and with operating tonal functions—was certainly to become a crucial

resource in most of Berg’s later music, and Song 2 marks a turning point in his

development of this resource.

Of more immediate concern for this study is Berg’s exploitation of whole-tone

fields as analogues for common-practice tonal relationships. While Song 2 exposes

the prospect of affiliating whole-tone and common-practice designs, it also betrays

two related limitations. First, my graphs for this song label only three local

common-practice harmonic functions: tonic, dominant and secondary dominant It

seems that whole-tone chords—or at least a single whole-tone chord type—cannot

clearly invoke more diverse functions. Second, tne fact that major seconds are

harmonic in most whole-tone chords severely restricts the possibilities for non

harmonic tones. In the outer sections of this song only one note, the opening vocal

cb can count as a whole-tone “dissonance.” To be sure Berg introduces much

more dissonance in the song’s middle section, considerably obscuring the whole-

tone chords and their field relationships. Only in this way, it appears, can he

provoke heightened tension in the whole-tone harmonic design. He seems,

however, to have no systematic way of integrating the use of non-whole-tone

sonorities into his whole-tone language. As we examine Song 1 in the following

chapter, we shall see that Berg overcomes the latter limitation, if not the former.

He also considerably broadens the sonorous palette with which he blends whole-

tone and traditional relationships.


CHAPTER 6

SONG 1, “Schlafen, Schlafen, nichts als Schlafen!”

If Jarman finds Song 2 the seminal creation of Berg’s early years, Rockmaker

favours Song 1: “This song, not the middle two, seems to me the real turning point

in Berg’s development.” (Rockmaker 1990, 8). I am inclined to agree with

Rockmaker, for Berg’s management of pitch resources here strikes me as markedly

more sophisticated than that we have just witnessed. In just one respect “Schlafen,

Schlafen” is, of all the Op. 2 songs, Berg’s most conservative tonal design: it

begins and ends on the same clear tonic triad. Most of this song’s harmonic plan,

however, is once again dependent on whole-tone sonorities (a greater variety of

them this time) and on whole-tone field oscillation. Moreover Berg now integrates

a third consistent group of sonorities into this mix, while making expressive use

of the only true prolongational device the whole-tone system appears to offer.


When Berg wrote to Helene in 1911 “Just to sleep is everything,” he was

paraphrasing a sentiment he had recently set to music: “Schlafen, Schlafen, nichts

als Schlafen!”—or perhaps in opening these songs with Friedrich Hebbel’s text,

Berg was echoing his own insomniac sentiments. Certainly Hebbel’s romantic verse

is made to appear more tormented than it is by the Expressionist lyrics with which

Berg follows it. Even on its own, however, its vision of the poet shrinking from

life, enshrouding himself in a dreamless, lethal sleep is an uncommonly morbid

106


107

one. Berg sets HebbeFs text to a listlessly rocking six-eight motion, turning it into

a sort of Expressionist Wiegenlied.

Like the two miniatures that follow it, Berg's expansive setting has the features

of a ternary form. More to the point, however, the images of HebbeFs poem

describe an arch shape: mortal sleep and closed eyes at its beginning and ending,

life's abundance at its apex. Berg matches this design with another step in his

assimilation of symmetrical means: his earliest attempt at a formal palindrome. The

palindrome here is not Berg’s strictest, but he pursues it on several fronts. As Kett

points out, the song’s dynamic and textural shapes are roughly symmetrical about

a climactic point in mm. 16-17. The dynamic levels progress from ppp to / to

pppp, the number of simultaneously sounded tones from one to eight and back to

one. There are also strong palindromic elements in Berg’s layout of pitch materials

In this regard he fashions the palindrome most strictly at the song’s extremities: the

final five measures are approximate mirror images of the opening five.1 Morgan

shows, however, that a symmetrical pitch arc can be traced more loosely through

the entire song. This arc is carried principally by the piano RH in mm. 1-10

(doubled by the voice) and mm. 23-30. In the central measures it is transferred to

the voice, which ascends from d Ij1 in m. 10 to the climactic f \ 2 in mm 16-17,1 7subsiding back to its final d \ in m. 24

^ e t t graphs the pitch palindrome formed by mm. 1-5 and mm. 26-30 (1989, 75). He also illustrates the dynamic and textural symmetries of this song in a graph (1989, 74).

2Morgan graphs this arc in his study of Berg's use of “retrograde and circular forms” (1991a, 134). In connection with Morgan’s graph we might note basic symmetnes of overall tessitura in this song. The piano spans four octaves from its initial low D \ to its highest in mm. 16-17, then five octaves to its final D l|, A similar motion is present in the voice, which rises a single octave from an initial / V to the climactic f \ 2 before falling to its final d ll1 (its line being then continued by the piano postlude, whose RH returns to the initial f \ !).


108

Mapping the song’s palindromic constituents onto its harmonic and motivic

ones produces several likely formal plans for this song. As Morgan describes it,

“The music of Op. 2, No. 1 is . . . fundamentally multivalent (and thus

fundamentally Bergian), incorporating features attributable to several possible

formal models: ternary, tension-release, continuous variation, and retro? ade ”

(Morgan 1991a, 136). In my analysis I partition the song not into three sections but

into four, as follows.

A phrase 1 mm. 1-6 Schlafen, Schlafen, Nichts als Schlafen!phrase 2 mm. 6-10 Kein Erwachen, keinen Traum!

B mm. 11-14 Jener Wehen, die mich trafen, Leisestes Erinnem kaum,

C mm 15-20 DaB ich, wenn des Lebens Fiille Nieder klingt in meine Ruh’, Nur noch tiefer mich verhiille,

A' division 1 division 2

mm. 21-25 mm. 26-30

Fester zu die Augen thu’!

Sections B and C can be held to constitute the central portion o f a ternary design.

Again Berg elides the formal boundaries, indeed some different sites for these

boundaries are valid.^ As we shall see, I base my appraisal of the song’s form on

Berg’s disposition of pitch (and predominantly harmonic) materials.

The musical fabric of this song is again strongly motivic, but it is not this time

allied to a pair of motives. Instead a single three-note gesture—and especially its

last two notes—generate most of the song’s substance. The gesture is reached at

the end of the first vocal phrase (reproduced in Example 6-1). As Camer puts it,

Song 1 “may be described as a study in the emotional effect of downward

appoggiaturas as the musical symbol of a sigh.” (Camer 1983, 98). The sigh first

3Rockmaker (1990, 9) and Morgan (1991a, 134) both assign a ternary form to the song, but begin the A' section in m. 24, at the piano postlude. Kett’s judgement is slightly different: A (mm. 1-10), B (mm. 10-19), A' (mm. 19-24), Coda (mm. 24-30).


109

Example 6-1. Song 1: mm. 1-5, vocal line.

Sehr langsam PP 3-5 111.4.5]

& ifSchla-fcn. Schla- ten.


mchts ab> Schla - fen'i3-5 i i3-8 i|0,5,<>! [0,4,t>J

appears in m. 5 and thereafter echoes through the song. More generally the

semitonal motion it embodies, presaged in the phrase’s wedge pattern, pervades

almost all of the song’s surface voice leading. Those linear motions that are not

semitonal are derived from the gesture’s other component, the tritone leap, and

from its precursors, the minor sixth and perfect fifth.4

The motive’s tritone and appoggiatura are also vital to the harmonic life of

Song 1. Together they form a linear statement of trichord 3-5 [11,4,5], As we have

already seen in Example 3-3, however, the appoggiatura is supported in the piano

RH by a harmony of the same set type, 3-5 [0,5,6] (added to the vocal staff in the

present example) This sonority resolves with the appoggiatura to trichord

3-8 [0,4,6]—a whole-tone class now familiar from Song 2. It will emerge that these

two trichord types, and the resolution of the first into the second, lie at the heart

of Song 1 ’s harmonic construction.

An Overview of Pitch Structure

I present my account of this song’s overall pitch design in Example 6-2. The

conventions of this example are as follows.

4The two-note sighing gesture in m. 5 is technically a suspension figure, though in many of its later appearances it is an appoggiatura For simplicity I shall term all statements of this figure appoggiaturas.


Exam

ple

6-2.

So

ng

1: vo

ice-

lead

ing

grap

hs.

110

JBT

*T CC-

-i* ~

V r . «» ^

CO

•f

** yLTl * T

<*&■ cK

■v TV

r


(V)

(V)

Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further


without

permission.

Example 6-2 (cont'd).

16 ie 20

A'21 22 2 ) 24 26 27 2B 29

(4-27)7 26 7 28 5 20 427 b-32 5-12 M l 4-11 4 24 6-12 5-12614 5-25 5-26 5 125- 144 1 84 24 -42*5-114-/294 /154-2I4V 29 5-2H5-11 42155-29 5 30 4 27 5 3 S 1 I I

(5-33) (5-13) (3 HI (5-3Jl | i-(j) (4-24) (4 21)

W l- (0) ( 1) (i) (II (ti) 0 (I) (1)(3 8)

1 0 (1)(181

(I (1) 00 8) (4 2 4 )0 8)

(I) (0) (t)

,J * . *t*

7-26 7-28(5-3 3) (5 it)

6-32 4 24 6-32

, < 0

<’< £

5 2 6 r>-34 4 24 5 3 ) 4 /2 0 4 21 4 / 2 0 5 l i(4 24) (4-21) (3 8 ) (I I!1

WT- (0) ( I ) in o) i o (i) o in 0

IV (V) (I) (V) (I) (V) (I)

Reprinted by permission of Robert l.ienmt, Berlin

tk *■(4 77) 5-20 0 8)

(t)

‘ *•i

4 27 (3 8)

( I )

112

1. The example has two voice-leading graphs, labelled “a” and “b”. The first is

a surface-level graph. It includes nearly all of the song's pitches, principally

omitting some note repetitions in mm. 8-10 and 16-17 and most octave

doublings. Graph 6-2b delves somewhat below the surface. I obtain it mainly

by paring away the many surface-level appoggiatura motions and (in section C)

by removing chordal notes that cloud some chromatic linear patterns. All

pitches m the former graph which do not make it to the latter are given as cue-

size notes. In turn, the cue-size notes in Graph 6-2b could, 1 surmise, be

expunged in a yet deeper-level account (My analysis does not, however,

require such a deeper-level graph.)

2. In both graphs I indicate voice-leading motions by slurs.

3. While I indicate the song's main formal sections, as usual, by double barlines,

I also use single barlines to mark further divisions, including those in the A and

A’ sections.

4. Below each graph are set classifications of the song’s harmonies. For many

non-whole-tone sets, I indicate the largest whole-tone subsets in parentheses.

1 also designate the field to which each whole-tone set (or subset) belongs. As

with the note sizes, I employ smaller type to indicate those sets which do not

(or, for Graph 6-2b, would not) survive to the next graphic level.

5 I use stems and (broken) beams to link the few most prominent pitches in the

treble and bass lines into pc collections.

6. Below Graph 6-2b I include roman-numeral / figured-bass labels for some

chords. I set in parentheses those whose functional status I feel is uncertain.

Graph 6-2a confirms immediately that the surface voice-leading in this song is

heavily semitonal, in the opening and closing sections it is almost exclusively so.

For its part the bass line recalls that of Song 2 in combining semitonal motion with

motion by fifths and fourths. Perfect fifths- -at times altered to tritones—occupy


113

the bass rocking motion in the outer sections (some of these appear in the graphs

as the bottom two chordal voices). Perfect fourths occur in the B section, in a

rising-fourths pattern reminiscent of those in Song 2 ‘

Do these bass motions, like their counterparts in Song 2, invoke a common-

practice tonal design? One thing certainly leads us to expect so: the song begins

and ends on the tonic triad. The opening pedal tones, D t| and A l|, further imply in

their rocking motion a local tonic-dominant relationship between some of the

harmonies they support A few other chords in Graph 6-2b—those at the ends of

the B and C sections—also admit fairly secure functional definition. When,

however, most of the pc collections from mm. 5-10 reappear in mm. 22-25, the

absence of their former bass tones seriously impairs the clarity of their functions;

these must now be imputed to them by analogy. And assigning any traditional

functions to many of the central five- to seven-note sonorities appears futile. V

are left with a rough profile in which the tonic function, underpinned by the pe^ u

dyad, commands the song's opening section. This gives way in m. 11 to a possible

dominant chord, whose bass C # is then transferred by the rising-fourths pattern to

cjf in m. 14. Disarray—presumably deliberate—overtakes the plan throughout the

C section until subdominant harmonies in mm. 20-21 prepare the (conjectural)

return of the dominant. Repeated local resolutions to (again conjectural) tonic

chords foreshadow the ultimate settlement on the (happily not conjectural) tonic

triad.

I believe this plan, fragmentary as it is, is influential in our perception of

Song 1. Much fuller—and moreover integral to the foregoing plan—is the song’s

whole-tone design. Extending the technique he develops in Song 2, Berg again

5Not surprisingly Devoto features Song 1 in his study of Berg’s “creeping chromaticism.” He presents a graph of the song’s bass motion, one which “illustrates the contrast between tonicizing motions and chromatic creeping, the former marked at various places by chords supported by a perfect fifth in the lower voices.” (DeVoto 1991, 68)


114

centres his harmonic vocabulary around whole-tone collections. Again field

alternation patterns help to describe the song’s formal areas. Again a clouding of

the whole-tone idiom and a breakdown in field patterns generate the tension

required for the song’s climactic measures. What is new is that the non-whole-tone

elements are now reliably configured , they are principally members of the tritonal-

quartal family. Their relationship to the whole-tone structure is now clearly

defined: they originate as adjunct, mainly almost-whole-tone sets, generated by the

song’s appoggiatura motive. And they begin to manifest structural relationships of

their own—a process we shall see Berg continue in Song 4.

Sectional Analysis

The confluence of traditional, whole-tone, and tritonal-quartal elements in this

song is an intricate one and is best understood through a close analysis of the

song’s formal divisions. The graphs in Example 6-2 are detailed enough to serve

for much of this analysis, though they will need to be supplemented at times with

locally specific examples.


We have noted that the song’s motivic basis is established at the end of its

opening phrase. Like the initial phrase of Song 3, this one appears strongly driven

towards its end, the motivic appoggiatura gesture in m. 5. In common-practice

terms, however, the entire phrase is simply an ornamented tonic function, grounded

in the pedal D !| and, above that, the slightly decorated^ l|. The driving force behind

the phrase is only evident when we weigh its whole-tone materials, as we began

to do in examining the appoggiatura figure in Examples 3-3 and 6-1. We saw in

the former example that this appoggiatura only retains its prolongational status in

relation to the whole-tone harmonic framework. The RH resolution of trichord


115

3-5 [0,5,6] to 3-8 [0,4,6] is augmented by the bass £>l) to a resolution of tetrachord

4-Z15 [0,2,5,6] to whole-tone tetrachord 4-21 [0,2,4,6], We now observe from

Example 6-2 that the task of the preceding measures is to'prepare this gesture by

advancing smoothly from the tertian-diatonic opening to the whole-tone

environment. After the D minor triad come two different versions of tetrachord

4-27: one in “inverted” form, 4-27i [2,5,8,10], the second in “original” form,

[9,11,2,5]. As a superset of both trichords 3-11 and 3-8, 4-27 mediates between the

tertian-diatonic and whole-tone idioms. We then arrive at the goal harmonies and

the appoggiatura figure. The overall chord to which this figure resolves, pentachord

5-34 [0,2,4,6,9] appropriately sums up both the tonal and the whole-tone aims for

this phrase. It is a tonic chord, if a rather extended one (I9/l* ). It encompasses the

tonic triad, two inversely related versions of mediating class 4-27 (4-27i [6,9,0,2]

and 4-27 [4,6,9,0]), and whole-tone tetrachord 4-21 [0,2,4,6], Its whole-tone

content lies in field WT-0, the “tonic-containing” field. We see, in fact, that the

phrase has already initiated a regular oscillation of fields through the preceding

4-27 chords. The goal pentachord is preceded by the tntonal-quartal pentachord

5-32 [0,2,5,6,9], A superset of trichords 3-5, 3-8, and 3-11, this sonority will

assume its primary role as the closing harmony of Song 4.

Phrase 2, mm. 6-10

The opening phrase securely establishes the tonic region while exposing the set

families and relationships upon which this song is based. Its successor languidly

extends these elements within a narrow compass, a brief piano interlude then

accelerates towards the song's “awakening” in m. 11. Example 6-3 expands the


116

summary given of this phrase in the main graphs and takes account of the rhythmic

interplay of elements here 6

In m. 7 Berg takes the appoggiatura gesture to a higher level—in two senses

of the word “higher.” He transposes the entire gesture up a semitone (excepting the

bass A lj, which becomes the stable pedal tone). As the RH trichord 3-5 prepares

again to resolve to 3-8, the bass oscillation produces in turn both all-interval

tetrachords, 4-Z15 and 4-Z29: overall, pentachord 5-28. The resolution this time

is to whole-tone pentachord 5-33 [1,3,5,7,9] from field WT-1. Measure 8 sees the

gesture lowered again, so m. 7 stands as an upper neighbour to its surroundings—a

higher-level semitonal gesture derived from the appoggiatura figure.

Echoes of this semitonal motion resound in the following measures, quickening

in harmonic rhythm. By mm. 8-9, however, the rocking bass pattern is slightly

altered: the oscillation of A t| and Dl| now underlies the main RH chord changes.

The implications of this shift are twofold. It signals, on the one hand, a subtle

move towards independence for the tritonal-quartal harmonies. The “resolutions”

of tetrachord 4-Z29 [6,7,9,1] (and in m. 10, of pentachord 5-28) are not now to a

whole-tone chord but to its Z-mate, 4-Z15 [0,2,5,6] (which itself continues to

resolve, as before, to 4-21 [0,2,4,6]). This juxtaposition of the all-interval

tetrachords, presaged in m. 7, plays upon a specifically intervallic, atonal

correlation. On the other hand, these same 4-Z29 chords, built above the bass^ l|,f A A / U

are this song’s clearest dominant-function harmonies (V " * ' *) and their resolution

over the bass’s falling fifth its clearest tonicizing motions. Indeed it is only by

analogy with the 4-Z29 chords in mm. 8 and 9 that one can posit dominant

functions for the 5-28 harmonies in mm. 7 and 10-11—and for similar chords in

the song’s closing section.

6In my set labelling in Example 6-3 I take no account of the d #1 lower neighbour tones in mm. 6, 8, and 9, nor of the brief £> l| passing tone in the bass at the end of m. 10.


Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further


without

permission.


10B11

Sdila • fen! Kein Er - wa kei - nen Traum!

¥(711 ■#!

4-/15.5 -3 2

4-21 . . 5-34

4-27 4-/15 4-Z29 4-21 4-24 . . 5-28 . . 5-33 _ .

4 -/15 4-2110,2,5.6] 10,2,4.6]

4-/29 4 -/15 4-2116.7.9,1]

4-/29 4 -/15 4 21 5-28 4-/15 4-21 5-28 5 28

(3-8) (4-21) (4-25) 11.3.5,7.0] (3-8) (3-8) (3-8) (3-8) (3-8) (4-25) (3-8) (4-25) (4-25)

WT- (0) 1 0 (1) 0 (0 0 (1) 0 (1) (1)

t

9 mo <j* 7

1t ' l

tq

< %

Jl 10 9 k 7

I *

0

d: I (V) I V i V I (V) i (V) (V)

Reprinted bv permission o f Robert Lienau. Berlini

117

118

After m. 7 the pure whole-tone content of this passage is restricted to four more

appearances of tetrachord 4-21 [0,2,4,6] in m. 8, 9 and 10. These, however, are the

stable tonic-supported chords; they are moreover products of a kind of double

appoggiatura motion from the 4-Z29 harmonies. They, and the “tonic-containing”

field WT-0 thereby receive the tonal emphasis the appoggiatura imparts. Only at

the first chord of m. 11 is the pattern of stress on WT-0 broken.

The interplay of materials in this song’s A section is especially striking. Berg

does what composers traditionally do in opening sections: he establishes the pre

eminence of the tonic pitch class while projecting its relationship to the dominant.

He manages to do so both in the realm of conventional root movement and in the

opposition of whole-tone fields. The sense of pull between these fields is then

enhanced by the ever-present—and truly functioning—appoggiatura figures,

projected in trichord 3-5. Common-practice, whole-tone and tntonal-quartal

materials are integrated and all bent towards the same expository end.

Section B, mm. 11-14

With the first chord of m. 11 and its vocal anacrusis the song begins to drive

towards its textual and palindromic climax. Several features mark mm. 11-14 as

a new formal division. Most conspicuous is an awakening out of the narrow

registral confines of the opening section. While the piano breaks into multi-octave

flourishes in sixty-fourth notes, the voice delivers the next two lines of text in a

nsing sequence. Both parts continue to draw on the three-note motivic gesture,

albeit with growing freedom.

Example 6-2 discloses that the rising sequence is also harmonn Again the

principal harmonies—those to which the appoggiatura figures resolve—are whole-

tone or almost-whole-tone ones, and again they alternate between the fields. Now,

however, field WT-1 receives the stronger emphasis. As Graph 6-2 a shows, the


119

harmonies pertaining to WT-0 resolve, in appoggiatura motions, to those of WT-1.

Accordingly they can be pared away and the sequential pattern clarified in

Graph 6-2b: two parallel motions from pure whole-tone chords, 6-35 and 5-33, to

chords o f class 4-27.

The voice leads this sequence in its overall ascent of just a tone, from a l |1 in

m . l l to in m. 14—the latter subject both to a complex appoggiatura

decoration and to a pc exchange with an inner voice. The surface bass motion,

meanwhile, echoes the rising-fourths passages in Song 2, as does the bass’s overall

octave transfer from C# to c |f These two boundary tones support harmonies that

can both be ascribed dominant function: the initial hexachord 6-35 only by analogy

with earlier WT-1 sonorities, the final 4-27 harmony more conventionally (VII117).

Section C, mm. 14-20

The end of section B’s sequence provokes a greatly accelerated march to the

song’s climax in mm. 16-17 and a rather more gradual retreat. In m. 15 the vocal

and bass lines rapidly diverge, the voice reaching the apex of its range at the

beginning of m. 16 As it lingers over this climax for the next two measures, it is

supported by the song’s thickest sonorities, heptachords of classes 7-26 and 7-2S.

These opulent harmonies—presumably symbolic of the “abundance of life”—are

made even richer by subjection to several rapid octave transfers.7 The effect of the

transfers then echoes in the succeeding measures as the withdrawal from the climax

is presented first in the higher register, then in the lower.

In these measures the regular fluctuation of whole-tone fields is lost; some

chords indeed have no salient whole-tone content. As in Song 2, Berg employs

7I have omitted these transfers from the graphs of Example 6-2 so as not to obscure my account of die song’s overall design. Their absence, however, itself obscures the fact that both voice and piano reach the apogees of their ranges in mm. 16-17.


120

disruption of the whole-tone design—and here of functional design—as an agent

of instability and of contrast with the song’s outer sections. These qualities are

again gained, however, by recycling familiar elements, bringing them into new

alignments. The climactic piano harmonies in mm. 16 and 17 aptly combine sets

of class 3-5 in the LH with those of whole-tone tetrachord 4-24 in the RH (see

Example 6-4). The whole-tone content of these two repeated chords lies in different

fields, now equal in emphasis, since the heptachords are carefully balanced in

rhythmic stress.

As harmonic patterns become clouded in this section interval-succession

patterns come to greater prominence. These have been latent in the voice-leading

since the opening vocal wedge pattern. After m. 14 they appear more prevalent,

although still with the rudimentary quality they had in Song 3. Hidden in

Graph 6-2a, for instance, is a brief succession of whole tones and semitones

sounded in octaves by the piano RH in mm. 14-16. This formation, derived from

the appoggiatura figure, is illustrated (in single notes rather than octaves) in

Example 6-5. The most developed figure is the wedge that dominates the music’s

Example 6-4. Song l:mm. 16-17, heptachord structure.

4-244-24

3-53-5


Example 6-5. Song 1: mm. 14-16, interval-succession pattern.

121

withdrawal from the climax in mm. 18-20, drawing attention to itself by being

repeated in two registers. Embedded in dense chords, this semitonal pattern is

mainly a three-voice one: a falling treble line set against rising bass and middle

lines. Graph 6-2b clarifies the pattern and emphasizes its one symmetrical

harmony, the quartal hexachord 6-32 [7,9,11,0,2,4] made salient first by its metric,

then by its registral placement. (This hexachord duplicates the one found in the

central section of Song 3.)

The whole-tone allegiance of hexachord 6-32 is notably impossible to judge

because of the even balance of its pc content. Balance between the fields is also

maintained as the wedge concludes in the high register with a WT-0 tetrachord,

4-24 [10,0,2,6], then in the lower one with 4-24’s WT-1 superset 5-26 [7,5,9,10,1],

This pentachord is also the first harmony since m. 14 to which a traditional

function—IV9/7/i’5—can be imputed. Its arrival in m. 20 is signalled by the return

of perfect-fifth bass oscillation, now a fourth up from its original position at the

song’s opening. The pentachord additionally has an atonal interest as the class

complement of one o f the climactic heptachords, 7-26. (The other heptachord, 7-28,

finds a number of such matches in the 5-28 chords of the song’s opening and

closing sections.)


122

Section A'Division 1, mm. 21>25

Disagreement about where to locate the beginning of~the closing section is

understandable, as the musical patterns here are smoothly joined. I choose the

transposed reappearance in m. 21 of pentachord 5-34—the goal harmony of the

initial phrase—as the clearest token of the song’s return to former material. Like

the A section, this final one is divisible into two units, though these do not quite

match an expected partition into final vocal phrase and piano postlude. The former

of these divisions, mm. 21-25, recapitulates the second phrase of section A; the

latter, mm. 26-30, recalls—in retrograde form—the opening passage.

Example 6-6 offers a two-stave reduction of mm. 21-26 for comparison with

its A-section model, already cited in Example 6-3 .8 Transfer of opening material

up a perfect fourth has already commenced slightly before section A': with the

pedal fifth under the subdominant 5-26 harmony in m. 20. Since m. 21 is a nearly

exact transposed copy of mm. 5-6, its 5-34 pentachord may now be read as a

continued subdominant function (IV9/7/l1). At the same time, m. 21 ushers back the

regular shift of whole-tone fields as well as the appoggiatura figure and its setting

within trichords 3-5 and 3-8. This last fact becomes crucial in the following

measures. While the vocal line continues in a transposition of earlier material, the

piano part gradually resumes its original pitch level. In mm. 22-23 it is only the

central 3-5 and 3-8 trichords that match their original versions in mm. 7-8.

Beginning with the anacrusis to m. 24, however, the entire pc content is lifted from

mm. 8-10.

With the return o f field oscillation, and o f the harmonic collections of

mm. 5-10, do we also regain the clear dominant-to-tonic resolutions found in these

8As in Example 6-3 I ignore a few local neighbour tones in my set analysis of Example 6-6: occurrences of d $ l in mm 23-25, and the gll1 in the RH in m. 23. In addition, I omit some octave doublings in the RH.


Exam

ple

6-6.

So

ng

1: m

m.

21-2

6.

fN

m

PM

9

I

cc

CO

CO

CD

1

IV <?l*< *N i/ l*iT

<3-C 2n. >

£

a

ro

a:

§

Ea.

Clatac


124

earlier measures? Alas, no, for Berg makes a small but decisive revision to these

harmonies. The fundamental root motion from A lj to D t|, formerly in the bass, is

relocated to the treble in mm. 23-25. While it remains strongly suggestive there,

it fails to support these chords as firmly as before—hence the hesitant parentheses

around all of the roman numerals in this passage.

Division 2, mm. 26-30

The underlyii r palindrc me motion of the last five measures is most clearly

seen in Graph 6-2b. Reversing the song’s initial course from the tertian-diatonic

to the whole-tone, these closing measures return from the whole-tone—this time

the purely whole-tone pentachord 5-33—back through two chords of class 4-27,

to the concluding tonic triad Even apart from the first pentachord the reversal is

not exact. The first 4-27 harmony, [9,11,2,5], matches that found in m. 4, but is

now augmented by a bass E l|. The second one replaces its model with a harmony

more amenable to resolution to the tonic chord: [5,7,10,1], a chord whose whole-

tone allegiance is to the “dominant-containing'’ field WT-1, and whose bass is the

leading tone, C |1. Berg declines, then, to provide this song’s closing measures with

a strongly grounded dominant-fiinction chord but does initiate a final resolution in

terms of whole-tone fields. He also seeks an additional resolution suitable to the

appoggiatura figure. As shown in Graph 6-2a, each of the closing palindromic

chords is now heavily decorated with semitonal neighbours, all resolving in

appoggiatura gestures. The final triad is preceded by a pentachord’s worth of such

neighbours: a black-note 5-35 chord, which yields a wholly linear resolution to the

white-note tonic triad


125

Deeper-level Structure and the Vrsatz

In Graph 6-2a it is a truly prolongational device, the semitonal appoggiatura,

that supports most of my judgements about structural pitches (the normal-size

notes) and expansionary ones (the cue-size notes). My assessments in Graph 6-2b

do not have quite the same foundation. The most likely models for deeper-level

expansion are those which invoke the oscillation of whole-tone fields, since this

oscillation continues to rely on semitonal motion. In fact, surface-level

appoggiaturas already render field WT-0 subordinate to WT-1 in mm. 11-14. 1

extend this process in Graph 6-2b. I have asserted, for instance, that the WT-1

harmony in m. 7 is readily felt as a neighbour-chord to those harmonies that

surround it. Similarly I judge WT-1-related chords in mm. 8-10 and 24-25 to be

ancillary to their WT-0 neighbours Here context, in the form of metrical

placement, aids my judgement (see Examples 6-3 and 6-6)

Context must take the lead from here on, however, for the song’s harmonic

language will permit no more prolongational judgements. Extending the role of

semitonal motion, I assert that the 4-27 harmonies in the opening phrase, and their

palindromic counterparts in the closing measures, are o f passing quality Their role

is to associate the tertian-diatonic and whole-tone idioms represented at the

boundaries of these passages. Likewise the semitonal wedge patterns in mm. 15

and 18-20 may be counted as transitional, linking the climactic heptachords to the

surrounding whole-tone (and functional) materials. Finally, m the only linear design

mediated by whole-tone rather than semitonal movement, the chords of mm 12

and 13 connect those built above another conventional tonal device, the octave

transfer in the bass.

This amalgamation of the conventional and the unconventional appears to hold

even in this song’s macroscopic design. Song 1 holds the promise that a

conventional Schenkerian background might be concealed behind its foreground


126

innovations. Aside from the song’s beginning and ending triads, there is also a

tantalizing clue in the vocal line, which opens on scale degree 3 and closes in

m. 24 on L The octave transfers around the climactic point hint that the vocal

climax itself is but a registral transfer of the Kopfton.

This promise founders, however, on the lack o f traditional support for 2. In both

the opening and closmg sections E I) is governed by its whole-tone field allegiance,

not by membership in a dominant harmony. In the repeated resolutions to the

“tonic-containing” field WT-0 in mm. 23-25, E l| appears with the tonic rather than

before it. Berg does associate E I) with field WT-1 by placing it in the bass in the

third-to-last chord of the palindromic pattern (see Graph 6-2b). Its resolution to the

tonic is then ornamented by the neighbour-tone C # of the following chord.

Adapting this resolution to the Schenkerian paradigm, however, requires

transferring this 2 to the treble voice, still leaving it bereft of conventional

harmonic support.

My own “ Ursatz”—or at least treble-bass model—is not a Schenkerian one: it

is not the product of deeper-level prolongation. Instead the notes marked out by

stems and beams in Example 6-2 are again contextually distinguished. They mostly

lie at the boundaries of formal sections, and they are associated with the song’s

pivotal harmonic events. The linear collections formed by associating these

pitches—set 3-8 [5,9,11] in the treble, set 3-5 [1,2,7] in the bass—symbolize, in

my estimation, the consistent interplay throughout this song between the whole-

tone and tritonal-quartal families of sets.

Having examined these songs out of the order in which they are performed, we

should remember that the rich materials of Song 1 are here being exposed to the

listener for the first time. They recur as cyclic elements in the succeeding songs:

the whole-tone procedures and perfect-fourth progressions in Song 2; the D minor


127

tonal region, the Alj-Dlj oscillation, and class 3-5 and 4-27 sonorities in Song 3.9

It remains for Song 4 to reassemble almost all of the cycle's elements and to cast

them into new alignments—sufficiently new so that Berg himself perceived a break

with the other songs.

9Cuhously I have not found a complete Schoenberg signature hidden in the tones of Song 1, where we might have expected it. Berg seems to have been content to outline his teacher’s first name in the A f| -D i| dyad and to supply the last name at the beginning of Song 2.


CHAPTER 7

SONG 4, “Warm die Lufte”

In making a distinction between “Warm die Lufte” and the preceding songs of

Op. 2 Berg was right, of course: Song 4 truly is different. Mombert’s tex. ~

longer, more dramatic, and even more enigmatic than the poems of Songs 2 and 3.

In Berg’s setting the formal plan, the motivic design, and the relationship between

voice and piano are in clear contrast to those of the other songs. Berg’s handling

of pitch materials is also distinctive. Even under my definitions of “tonality” and

“atonallty,” Son£ 4 seems to have a more atonal nature than its predecessors. It is

not that the pitch materials themselves or the kinds of relationships into which

Berg brings them are wholly novel; we have met already most of the formative

elements we shall meet in Song 4. It is rather that the atonal contexts in which

these elements can project meaning—intervallic symmetries, interval-succession

patterns, set-class relationships—now seem to predominate. By comparison the

consistent references we have seen to traditional tonal functions are now much

attenuated. The task for my present analysis is not only to interpret the atonal

patterns which abound in this song, but also to seek whatever tonal order may be

gleaned from its materials. “Warm die Lufte” is usually termed Berg’s first

“atonal” composition—a work different in kind from the “tonal” songs that precede

it My analysis aims to specify what the differences really are, and particularly to

show that they are differences not of kind, but of degree.

128


129

Text, Form, and Motivic Design

In “Warm die Lufte” Mombert turns the qualities o f his poetry—the prosaic

syntax, the surreal images projecting mental anguish—to dramatic ends. This poem

makes no reference to sleep, though in the context of these songs we may read it

as a nightmare. It does, however, deal starkly with solitude, treachery, and finally

death, the black shadow that has been hovering behind all of the earlier songs.

True to the Expressionist spirit, it is a sunny spring day, savoured in the first verse,

which inspires the bleak dramatic scene of the second: the dusky mountain forest,

the damp trees, the fevered girl in grey crying in misery. This scene prompts the

curious moral/aesthetic reflection of the third verse: it is her betrayal and death that

give the world such deep beauty.

The general model for Berg’s setting may be Schoenberg’s Erwartung, written

in the summer of 1909, a work whose dramatic themes are eerily similar to

Mombert’s.1 Emulating Erwartung, Berg sets Mombert’s poem as a tiny

monodrama. The vocal declamation is rhythmically free and widely ranging; it

closely mirrors the emotional contours of the text and is seldom tied to the

accompaniment patterns. The piano’s gestures are equally dramatic, especially at

the approach to the song’s climax and its aftermath, where a violent double

glissando (m. 15) provokes an equally violent cascade to a percussive low B \>2

(m. 18). In “Warm die Lufte” Berg foreshadows his future career as a dramatic

composer.2

1 Several writers have remarked on the influence of Erwartung on Berg’s “Warm die Lufte”: see Adorno 1991, 49; Simms 1986a, 161; DeVoto 1989, 44.

2Some writers have observed similarities between passages in this song and passages in Wozzeck, Der We in, and Lulu. Mary Wennerstrom notes that the song’s opening sonority [of set class 5-20] matches that of Wozzeck, while the whole-tone oscillation of the song’s opening phrase foreshadows the opera’s final measures (Wennerstrom 1977, 19). Glen Watkins connects the perfect-fifth dyads of mm. 10-11 and the double-glissando figure of m. 15 with passages in Lulu and in Der Wein (Watkins 1988, 46).


130

Aiming for the operatic, Berg foregoes both the ternary designs and the motivic

patterns of the first three songs. There is no overt return o f earlier material

anywhere in the piece, nor do the song’s phrases share surface motivic gestures.

There does, however, remain a vestige of the formal procedure found in Songs 1

and 2, a sense that familiar elements are clouded in the central, climactic measures

and restored in the final passage. Berg also preserves in his music the division of

Mombert’s poem into three stanzas. The most immediate sign of this division is

the single-note texture with which the piano bridges the stanzas, in mm. 8-9 and

mm. 18-19. Accordingly I have partitioned Song 4 into three sections, as follows.

B

phrase 1 mm. 1-2 Warm die Lufte,phrase 2 mm. 3-4 es spriefit Gras auf sonnigen Wiesenphrase 3 mm. 4-6 Horch! —

Horch, es fiotet die Nachtigall...phrase 4 mm 7-9 Ich will singen:

phrase 5 mm 9-10 Droben hoch in diistem Bergforst,phrase 6 mm 10-11 es schmilzt und sickert kalter Schnee,phrase 7 mm. 11-13 ein Madchen in grauen Kleide

lehnt an feuchtem Eichstamm,phrase 8 mm. 13-14 krank sind ihre zarten Wangen,phrase 9 mm. 14-15 die grauen Augen fiebem

durch Dusterriesenstamme.phrase 10 mm. 15-18 “Er kommt noch nicht. Er laBt mich

warten”...

phrase 11 mm. 19-22

phrase 12 mm. 22-25

Stirb!Der Eine stirbt, daneben der Andere lebt: Das macht die Welt so tiefschon.

Of more analytical value than the broad sectional partitions are the phrase divisions

of this song. These, as we can see, generally follow the poem’s verse structure.

Most phrases are demarcated in the voctl line by rests. They also display their own

textures and typical figures in the accompaniment, notwithstanding that Berg elides


131

phrases by carrying some figures over from one phrase to the next. Phrases in the

B section are bound more closely than those in the outer sections. This is

especially so in phrases 7-10 where Berg develops an accompaniment pattern in

the piano that drives through the vocal phrases.

Tonal Design

Much of my analysis of this song, especially my detailed scrutiny of its phrases,

will highlight atonal properties. It is clear, however, that Berg handles pitch

materials here in a manner that continues to thrust some pitch classes into

prominence. In Example 7-11 plot the configurations of pitch salience I perceive

in this song. This graph has the following conventions.

1. The notes I include are mostly those 1 consider, on contextual grounds, to be

locally prominent. Almost all of the vocal pitches featured, for instance, appear

on accented text syllables (which I have included) and in strong metrical

positions. In the piano part I cite all of the bass pitches, in order to show some

patterns of voice leading. Above the bass, the pitches are usually those made

salient by long duration, repetition, rhythmic accent, or registral placement.

Although I do not reproduce rhythms, the notes are placed approximately in

correct rhythmic alignment.

2. I link repetitions o f pitches by ties when the notes are adjacent or nearly so.

Dotted ties and dotted lines associate some pitches across longer spans and link

some pcs through changes of register. In addition, I use slurs to associate

pitches in some voice-leading patterns similar to those in the other songs.


Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further


without

permission.

Example 7-1. Song 4: tonal plan.

AI 2

B8 *1 10 12 13 14

'4-25 14.6,10.0] 1

H i ^ i n :Horch! Horch fid- NecHligill

*5* : V

Worm die I flt-te, Gicb-knak Wtn -gen Aug-fiehoch Berg- n-hmilrt glil- Sehnee M*d-8»- - -.........

One -gen Wk-

C15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

**xr» §♦■cbdn.Du nucht well lie!-sum- *Er...nieht Er lUlwikcn*

8“ -

e*4-25 14,6,10.01 , 4-229 4-/15 4 229 4-215 4-729 5-32 5-32 5-32 5-32

12.3,6,9,111 :2,1.6,9,111 (2,3,6,9,111 12,1,6,9,111

U l i a 47 1 io 4? Mo Mo Mo Moi 6 4 7 |647 I 6 17 4 7 4 7 4 7I I l i t * I t I

B: V_V . V ,V^V I I I IReprinted by permission of Robert Lienau, Berlin OJM

133

3. This graph does not address pc set-class membership (an atonal attribute). I

therefore cite only a few set names, some of which mark multiple appearances

of the same sets. It is only towards the end of the song that any of its

harmonies accept functional labels. Neither the labels I posit there nor the set-

class names just above them embrace pitches from the vocal line.

As represented by Example 7-1 this song’s tonal organization does not show

the kind o f coherence found in the other songs. Its patterns of pc association

mostly lack the strong connection with common-practice harmonic norms which

underlies the other songs’ innovations. Song 4 is not, however, tonally chaotic. Its

overriding tonal pattern appears to be one which associates three perfect-fifth

dyads, C \\ /G l|, F #/C It, and B l| /F )t, as well as their lower pcs alone. In median roles

appear tritone dyads B b/E l| and A Ij/E b, whose pcs may also appear separately. We

recall that, in the other songs, perfect-fifth dyads always maintain their traditional

function as elements of tonal stability, especially when, as in the opening and

closing measures of Song 1, they appear in the bass. Here they are again primarily,

though not exclusively, found in the bass, and Berg may well have intended them

to carry more than a vestige of that same stability. There is additionally a sense of

tonal progression in this song from the initial dyad built on Cl| to the final one

built on fill j.

The opening C l| dyad persists as a pedal through much of section A (mm. 1-3

and 5-6). It is interrupted at m. 4 for a chromatic ascent in the bass from /# to b !|,

during w hich/|t3 also appears in the piano as it imitates a nightingale’s song. That

song ends on e b1 which tone is then coupled with a I) as the first section concludes.

The same a I) then remains atop the piano’s sustained chord (whose bass note is

A l| j) in mm. 10-11, as dyads on C l| and F (I recur in the RH. Repeated movements

from the former dyad to the latter are spread over three registers, the last of which

returns the pair to the bass.


134

The arrival on the F t dyad at the beginning of m. 12 launches a complex of

interval-succession patterns (to be examined later). Those in the RH, placed over

a chromatic descent in ihe bass, are grounded on two stable tones, c l|1 and f t 1.

These patterns culminate in the double glissando of m. 1S, which takes the bass to

the nadir of its descent, a brief B \ j, and (after a pause) the beginning of its re-

ascent, C k At the other registral extreme appears a# 3 which quickly becomes b b3.

Over the course of the next three measures this tone plummets six octaves. In the

first part of its descent it is embedded in RH chords which also include the A/E b

dyad, as well as G b (= F #). By m. 17 the descent is much accelerated, as C l| /E If and

Gb/Bb dyads march violently down the keyboard. These two major-third dyads

form a collection we have heard before: whole-tone tetrachord 4-25 [4,6,10,0], It

was with this same tetrachord that the voice opened the song in mm. 1-2. We also

recall (from Song 2) that this set can be partitioned into two tritones. Doing so

now associates the top dyad notes B b and E !| and, beneath them, C I; and G b

(again, = F#).

The plunging dyads end in the song’s lowest pitch, B b2 Two measures of

percussion on this pitch then lead to the only passage which could easily belong

to the other songs—because the piano’s material has clearly been borrowed from

two of them. We shall later examine the set-class aspects of mm. 20-22, which

have attracted some attention. What interests us at this point is that the piano’s

chord sequence here combines features of earlier songs to which I have assigned

conventional harmonic meanings. In the bass is the rising-fourths cycle from the

opening of Song 2, with most of its pitches merely shifted down an octave. When

we met it before, this cycle was supporting harmonies (of class 4-25) explicable

as a sequence of applied dominant functions (see Example 5-5). Now the

harmonies are pairs of all-interval tetrachords, 4-Z29 and 4-Z15—chords first

paired in mm. 8-10 of Song 1 (see Example 6-3), where they were readable as


135

dominant-to-tonic resolutions (V 7/*6/* - 1 **I0/ 7/#). The present merger of these two

patterns now implies another sequence of applied dominants, oscillating between

two altered forms, and leading to the chord built on B \ in m. 22—the most

conventionally directed tonal motion of the song. The status of the sequence’s goal

harmony as a local tonic is then enhanced by three more cadential gestures to the

same chord, spread again over three registers. This repeated harmony is grounded

in a perfect-fifth dyad, linking this passage into the song’s broader tonal design.

Above that dyad lie pcs A t|, E b, and now D i|, a trichord whose presence I take to

be a final cryptic reference to Schoenberg’s name (AD S).5

The elements of this tonal plan are not novel In addition to the dyads and the

sequence of applied harmonies, the large-scale associations between F # and B l|

(V - I?) and C I] and F (1 (compare Song 3’s movement between A b and D I]) are both

familiar. The setting into which the elements are placed, however, is not. The

overall progression, apparently from a projection of C b to one of Bl), lacks the

reference to conventional tonal models which buttressed the other songs. Except

in mm. 20-22, the salient dyads and tones are no longer embedded in harmonies

and progressions which support their meanings according to some consistent norm

(either tertian-diatonic or whole-tone). In the vocal line it is mainly the boundary

pitches of some phrases that participate in the tonal scheme, other pitches, even

those in its closing phrase, seem independent of it. (Example 7-1 does reveal that

there are rising stepwise patterns in both the opening five measures of the vocal

line, and in its central approach to the climax [mm. 10-16], the latter in opposition

to the bass’s voice-leading.) In sum, there is indeed a perceptible tonal context to

Song 4. Its tonality is moreover projected by familiar elements. Both the harmonic

3Other writers have remarked on aspects of this song’s apparent tonal plan. See Wennerstrom 1977, 19; DeVoto 1989, 44-46; and Kett 1989, 84.


136

placement of those elements and their large-scale relations, however, are

unsettlingly unfamiliar and somewhat uncohesive.

Atonal Design

The same senses of familiarity and novelty, of manifest order and overall

incongruity pervades Song 4’s atonal design. One marker of incongruity is that 1

am discussing the song's atonality separately, as a context running parallel to, but

lacking integration with, its tonality. We shall find, in fact, that integration is not

entirely lacking. Neither, however, shall we find it to reach to levels of the

previous songs

A few writers have remarked that, for all its disparities with the first three

songs, Song 4 also recapitulates and transforms many of their elements 4 The truth

of this remark can be gauged by tallying the song’s notable set materials. It turns

out that the set-c/ass inventory for the entire cycle, presented back in Figure 3-1,

closely matches that for Song 4 alone. Only the hexachord pair 6-Z38 / 6-Z6, from

Song 3, and pentachord 5-34, from Song 1, fail to reappear with some distinction

in this final song. Moreover my assessment of the salient collections here leads me

to cite but a few classes not found in Songs 1 to 3: pentachord 5-Z18 and its

complement, 7-Z18; pentachord 5-21, its superset 6-20, and its superset 7-21; and

semitone-bearing trichords 3-2, 3-3, and 3-4.

Though most o f this song’s important set materials are not new, Berg often

deploys them now in new contexts. Even so, some familiar procedures govern this

deployment. The first is the arranging of symmetrical collections so as to project

their symmetry. In Chapter 3 1 already mentioned an example of this procedure,

Berg’s partitioning of set-clas^ 4-20 in two different symmetrical arrays: the first

in this song’s opening sonority, the second in mm. 10-11. Berg’s second procedure

4See Wennerstrom 1977, 18-19; Simms 1986a;, 162; Kett 1989, 83.


137

is the devising of interval-succession patterns We have seen how, in mm 20-22,

Berg reworks the pattern o f Song 2 with its bass cycle of perfect fourths

Intervallic formations elsewhere in the song show that Berg was in fact

experimenting with a variety of ways to contrive meaningful patterns. Berg’s final

procedure is one we first encountered in the climactic heptachords of Song 1. the

merging of materials—there, whole-tone and tntonal-quartal materials; see Example

6-4— originally heard separately. That passage illustrates how such combinations

will betray themselves in Song 4. In part we shall recognize their constituent

materials from earlier appearances. In addition, Berg is careful, when combining

these materials, to keep them distinct m register

Sectional Analysis

I have refrained from immediately subjecting samples of the above procedures

to analytic scrutiny. I shall also refrain from proposing an integrated plan for

Berg’s deployment of atonal resources. A salient feature of Song 4 is indeed a

variety—and something o f a disunity—in its atonal structure. Shared elements do

integrate the song’s formal sections: whole-tone materials pervade section A and

the all-interval tetrachords section C. Even within these sections, however, details

of atonal design often change from phrase to phrase. The procedures cited above

are best appreciated, then, by examining individual phrase units, though those in

the B section can be grouped for analysis


In each of the other songs of Op. 2, the opening phrase serves as a

Grundgestalt, exposing the song’s motivic and harmonic building blocks Despite

the lack of motivic unity in Song 4, its initial measures preserve something of this

function, for the set-class materials they disclose resonate m later phrases (see


138

Example 7-2a5). These measures can be read as compounding three strands of

material segregated by register. In the bass lies the first strand, the pedal dyad

CI|/GI|. Above it the other two strands are whole-tone, but they now present

collections from both fields simultaneously. In each hand of the piano part sounds

a held tone and a quarter-note ostinato pattern: set 4-21 [11,1,3,5] from WT-1 in

the LH, trichord 3-8 [8,0,2] from WT-0 in the RH. The voice allies itself with the

RH strand. In its set 4-25 [4,6,10,0] the pitches are arrayed in an expanding wedge

pattern, an interval succession of 4-6-8 semitones.

Underlying the mixture of whole-tone materials here is another interval pattern,

one whose symmetry is revealed by Example 7-2b. If the RH ostinato is made to

embrace the initial vocal b b its trichord accretes to form another set of class 4-21

[8,10,0,2], Raising the held/l| in the LH by one octave then completes the pattern:

two mirrored tetrachords of class 4-21. Continued grafting of the vocal line onto

the RH produces a complete whole-tone heptachord 6

Aside from the whole-tone materials, other collections are exposed in these

measures. The complete opening sonority is a pentachord of class 5-20, a class we

first met towards the end of Song 3. Though this set type will play no role during

Song 4, it will reappear in the closing five notes of the vocal line (see

Example 7-9). More important for its later use is set-class 4-20, whose

symmetry—a vertical array of 4-3-4 semitones—is projected by the initial pitches

of the whole-tone pattern Meanwhile the aggregate of all the piano’s material in

5In this and subsequent examples in this chapter, the main graphs present both pitches and rhythms but omit the other musical markings of the score. The vocal text is also included.

6Kett (1989, 83) has also partitioned these opening measures between the two whole- tone fields. His reading has been disputed by Anthony Pople (1993, 392-393), who hears the opening instead as an amalgamation of the Cl|/Glj dyad and a decorated Db -major chord. Christopher Wintle (1994, 310-312) has leapt to Kett’s defence.



' 4 - 2 5 [4.6,10,Oi

Warm

8 -Z 1 5

5 -2 0

b:

TO4 * — V - ----’ — —

i 4-21 18,10,0.2] I

------[f*----- — ^ -------------

' 4-21

. . i * _

[11,1,3,5]

! ; • . ! ♦

1

— ---------------------------------- -- ----------i4 - 2 0


these measures forms a set of class 8-Z15; we have already found i*s familiar

complement, 4-Z15. to be conspicuous in the song’s closing section.


140

Phrase 2, mm. 3-4

In m. 3 the piano’s whole-tone ostinati evolve into diatonic, then chromatic

lines, rising in two streams of parallel sevenths. We see from Example 7-3b that,

beneath its chromatic surface, the piano material of m. 4 continues to be whole-

tone in nature: most of the metrically accented pitches in this measure (the circled

notes) form a set of class 6-35. The vocal phrase, however, has only a slight

whole-tone affiliation. Example 7-3a clarifies the basis of this phrase: an interval


Hfs 1 HTsi p ...... . . . L .. -------------------------- ----------------------------- \ m--------------------— i ^ - ----------

— — - - - - - - - - - -

|3 - 5 ____________________ , ,_3J>

b: HTsn rr§

HTs 1 r mT 3 1 nrnr

Es spriefit Gras a u f son - m - gen

I 5 -2 27 -2 2

3 -4

4 -2 4 [9,11,1,5]6 -3 54-21

J



141

pattern in which two trichords of set 3-5 in rising sequence beget two others. (The

whole-step relationship of the sequential sets is then reflected in the phrase’s final

interval.) The inclusion of c\\2, however, augments the later trichords in this pattern

to tetrachords of class 4-18, as shown in Example 7-3b. The interval succession

now throws up intriguing class complement relations. O f principal interest are the

complementary set classes 8-18 (the combined material in the smaller sets) and 9-5

(the entire vocal phrase, as well as the combination of the initial vocal trichord

with its accompaniment). Of additional note is the symmetrical layout of

pentachord 5-22 around the vocal triplet figure at the end of m. 3, a figure which

Berg transforms in the following measure; this pentachord is also embedded in its

complement, a heptachord of class 7-22.

Phrase 3, mm. 4-6

Measures 5-6 see the return of the Clj/Glj dyad, absent in the preceding

measure. The atonal organization in this phrase, however, is generated by two set

types which emerge in the piano towards the end of m. 4. Whole-tone tetrachord

4-24 is embodied in the goal pitches of the previous rising dyad streams, and

trichord 3-4 is formed of the RH material when the nightingale’s song commences.

From Example 7-4 we see that this bird song, trilling mostly on two notes, is

crowned with a flourish in which each o f the hands is assigned another 4-24

collection, again merging the two whole-tone fields. The second of the

nightingale’s sets, [3,5,7,11], has already appeared in the final notes o f the vocal

phrase Leading into this vocal set is another chain of trichords, this time adopting

class 3-4.


142


T 5 1T 4 1

1 ' ' ...... Horch'

1 3-4

Hordi es fl6-tet die■---- ------1

a j i ----------- r f ---------- ~ i

if. ------------------------

Nadi - ti-gall14-24 1

r 3 3

N-2419,11.1,51

= 4 —3 i

- j_^j. L.H.


Phrase 4, mm. 7-8

With the piano part reduced to a remnant of the nightingale’s call, the fourth

vocal phrase brings closure to the poem’s first stanza (see Example 7-5). Aptly its

overall line comprises a set of class 8-25, complementing both the tetrachord with

which it opened the song and that formed by combining the boundary pitches of

its present phrase with the piano’s a \>!e fc>1 dyad: [1,3,7,9]. The vocal phrase is again

rich in atonal patterns, especially those associated with its single repeated pitch,

g lj1. Between the two appearances of this pitch lies whole-tone pentachord

5-33 [10,0,2,4,6], composed of overlapping sets of tetrachord 4-21. (The second

of these, on the syllable “sing-,” mirrors the undulating wedge pattern of the song’s

opening phrase, with each of its intervals diminished by a whole tone.) The central

pentachord lies embedded in its complement, set 7-33, while the phrase’s opening

and closing notes revive trichords 3-4 and 3-5. The presence of the piano’s two

pitches brings about other intriguing collections: in m. 7, pentachord 5-Z18 (whose


143


'8 -2 5 ~'7 -3 3

15-33 110,0,2, '4 -21

1 4-21 13 -4 ^ «

Jp n m " m i " *f * S

4,6] 1 1' 1

2 - 4 - 6 r 1-5 '

■ > -------

' 9 ............. ' » r t * >: ■Ich will sing

r--------"

gen

'4 - 2 5 11,3,7,9] 1

--------------

> . * . . —

lH l» ________________ I


complement will shortly gain prominence) and in m. 8, another set of class 9-5

(complementing the voice’s closing trichord).

In this phrase and throughout section A whole-tone collections have again been

paramount. Moreover Berg’s use of sets from both whole-tone fields is a procedure

harkening back to Songs 1 and 2. The new compounding of these sets, however,

has robbed them of the tonal analogy they projected before. Without the systematic

alternation of fields there can no longer be the sense that they represent the fifth-

related functions of conventional tonality.


144

Section BPhrases 5-6, mm. 9-11

The central section of “Warm die Lufite” is launched with a pair of phrases both

closely bound and intricately plotted. Following the single thought expressed by

the poem, Berg elides the vocal phrases here, and he sustains one of the harmonies

introduced in the first phrase throughout the second. The phrases are also allied by

their set structure, at the heart of which lie classes of sets related by inclusion:

4-20, 5-21, 6-Z44, and 7-Z18. I chart the atonal composition of these phrases in

Example 7-6.

In the first phrase (mm. 9-10) a contrary-motion pattern in the piano introduces

two of the pivotal set classes, 5-21 and 4-20, the latter represented by set [9,0,4,5],

The initial vocal pitches augment these sets to those of classes 6-Z44 and, again,

5-21. The vocal phrase, meanwhile, is the product of yet another pattern of

overlapping trichords, this time of classes 3-3 and 3-8.

More elaborately wrought is the second phrase (mm. 10-11). Here another

symmetrical partitioning of set 4-20 [9,0,4,5]—one using perfect-fifth dyads—can

be held to underpin both the vocal line and its accompaniment. If, as demonstrated

in Figure 7-1, we array this tetrachord as a pair of dyads, pcs 9/4 and 5/0, we may

obtain two sets of class 6-Z44 by appending semitones both below the pcs of the

first pair and above those of the second. Adding one further semitone to each

pattern then yields heptachords of class 7-Z18. In mm. 10-11 the piano’s central

tetrachord is provided by its sustained harmony. Adding the treble fifths generates

first set 6-Z44 [0,1,4,5,6,9], then heptachord 7-Z18 [0,1,4,5,6,7,9].7 In the vocal

line the same tetrachord arises in a symmetrically centred pattern (notes 2, 4, 5,

and 7 of the phrase’s eight-note sequence). Adding the other central tones yields

7Note also that the RH pattern of dyads comprises a tetrachord of class 4-9, a symmetrical set type identified by Perle as “Basic Cell I” of Lulu. See Perle 1985, 87fF; 1989


145


1 3-3 1 7-Z.18 10,2,3,4,5,8,9]* 3-3 1 1 3-8 1 16-Z44 10,3,4,5,8,9! 1

'3-3 1 13-8 1 4-20 |9,0,4,5|

Drobcn hoch in dii - stern Berg-foist, es schmilzt und glit-zcrt kalter Schnee.

I 5-21, |4-20(9,0,4.51

, 4 - 2 0 iI 6-Z44

6-Z44 ■ 5-21 I 7-Z18

|9,0,4,5j[0,1,4,5,6,91[0,1,4,5,6,7,91


Figure 7-1. Song 4: the symmetrical pattern in mm. 10-11.

Piano Z

7-718

6-Z44

6-Z447-Z18

Voice


146

the hexachord, 6-Z44 [0,3,4,5,8,9], while the vocal phrase as a whole forms the

heptachord, 7-Z18 [0,2,3,4,5,8,9],

Phrases 7-10, mm. 11-18

We have witnessed in Songs 1 and 2 Berg's tendency to use increasingly

complex textures and rhythmic compression to build excitement in driving towards

central climaxes. Song 4 illustrates again his fondness for these techniques. In

mm. 12-15 Berg generates an intricate web of interval-succession patterns in the

piano. These accompany (though they do not really interact with) vocal phrases

again fashioned from interlocking trichords and tetrachords. Example 7-7a discloses

the set structure of the vocal phrases, citing both the generating sets and some

resultant patterns of set-class repetition and complementation. The example also

maps the set-class profile of the piano's material, mainly its harmonies. As in

Songs 1 and 2, part of the climactic force of these measures appears to stem from

their mingling of familiar and novel sonorities. We can see that the set-class

inventory here does not show the economy characteristic of other passages.

(Alternative segmentations of the piano's material also fail to produce this

economy .) On the other hand, most of the vitality and logic of these phrases derive

from the remarkable complex of intervallic patterns with which the piano hastens

to its climactic double-glissando. Example 7-7b outlines the intervallic design of

these measures: an ordered composite of parallel and wedge patterns coursing in1 1 ftsemitones around the stable c !| !f% dyad. Another, less developed pattern then

succeeds the glissando. Here the prevalent major sevenths and minor ninths of the

previous measures become opposing streams of minor ninths, the treble stream

8My graph of these patterns is adapted and extended from one presented by Perle (1977, 4; see also Perle 1980, 5). DeVoto also charts the design of these measures; see DeVoto 1989, 46; 1991, 70-/1)


Reproduced

with perm

ission of the

copyright ow

ner. Further


without

permission.

Example 7-7a. Song 4: mm. 11-18.

11 12 11

I T T I

ein M id - then in gnu • «n KJei- de lehnl an fcucbtem F.icb-ttatnin, bank14 -1 7 ___________ | i 4 17 14,7,6,11)____________ | ,_____

LZJ2__________________________ i liiJ ________________ I I___u

9*e1 4-17 14,7,0,111 '

, 5-21

7 * |.3 8 .

| 1 3-4 1

. . . _ ], 6-16

6Z4? , 5 28 . 5-17 i,9 5 J i 9 3

Reprinted by permission o f Robert I.ienau. Berlin

M

Exam

ple

7-7a

(cont'

d ).

§ -

r^ — &


150

falling in octaves, the bass stream rising by semitones. Finally, in mm. 17-18, the

semitonal complexity disintegrates into a precipitous whole-tone descent to the

sepulchral B b2

Section CPhrase 11, mm. 19-22

Phrase 11, whose tonal design has already drawn our attention, has also drawn

most of the interest of theorists in Song 4. This interest has mainly been expressed

in comparisons: comparisons of the piano’s material with the opening of Song 29

and with passages by two of Berg’s French contemporaries.10 As we have seen,

the piano recapitulates in these measures elements of both Song 2 and Song 1 (see

Example 7-8). From Song 2 it borrows the bass’s cycle o f rising fourths and the

tactic of setting this cycle against one of chromatically falling trichords. However,

those trichords are not, in as Song 2, from class 3-8 but are sets of class 3-5

(introduced as an adjunct to class 3-8 in Song 1). Hence the piano’s harmonies

now oscillate between tetrachords 4-Z29 and 4-Z15. (Pairing these chords,

incidentally, yields sets of type 7-Z18, returning a heptachord class we have met

in mm. 10-11.) Trichord 3-8 is still not absent from the new sequence: the lowest

three pitches of each tetrachord belong to this class.

Classes 3-8 and 3-5 also turn up in the vocal line. The text here divides

semantically into opposing clauses, one stressing death, the other, life. The firsi

clause (as far as “stirbt” ) is sung to a trichord of class 3-8, as are the overall line’s

9See Redhch 1957, 42-44, and especially Perle 1977a, 3. See also Simms 1968b, 67; 1993, 124; and Kostka 1990, 75-76.

10Hans Stuckenschmidt (1965) pointed out the curious identity—even to exact pitches—of the piano’s chord progression with one in Debussy’s “Pour la danseuse aux crotales,” from Six epigraphes antiques (1914). Both Glen Watkins (1988, 49-50) and Mark DeVoto (1991, 69) have countered by noting its nearly equal identity to a few measures in Ravel’s “Le gibet,” from Gaspard de la nuit (1908)


151


19 2 0 21 - 22

3 -8

3 -5

Der Ei - ne suit*. da - na- hen dcr An dre Id*Stub'Lie_-tc

3 -8 t ic(4-/15)

5-324 - / 2 9 4 - 7 1 54 -Z 2 9 4 -7 1 5

7-Z1C 7-Z18 7 718

J J

Reprinted by penrission of Robert Lieaau. Berlin

main words (“Stirb,” “stirbt,” and “lebt”). Stressed syllables of the second clause

are set to a 3-5 trichord. Finally, the settings for the basic oppositional words of

this passage (“Der Eine stirbt,. . . der Andre lebt”), embody, when combined with

their accompaniments, set types complementary to the harmonic tetrachords

Phrase 12* mm. 22-25

The piano’s chordal sequence reaches its—and in the tonal plan, the

song’s—goal on the downbeat of m. 22 (see Example 7-9). To the expected

tetrachord 4-Z15 on this beat Berg makes the addition o f F$ above the bass B \


152


22 23 24 25

3-113-5

nuchl die Welt t ie f

3-11

3-11 3-11i6-20

3-113-5(AO S)

>1 | ,5-32 (2,3,6,9,1116-20 11 5-32 i 10.1,4.5,8,9112,3,6,9,111 !10,1,2,5,615-32

[2 .3 ,6 ,9.11

Reprinted by permission o f Robert Lienau. BerLn

Aside from the tonal importance of this pitch (in yielding the B l|/F # dyad) it also

produces pentachord 5-32 [2,3,6,9,11], aptly closing the cycle with a sonority first

heard at its opening (in m. 5 of Song 1).

Set class 3-11, present as the B-major triad formed by the bottom three pitches

of thic pentachord, continues to play an intriguing atonai role m the three

concluding cadences to the 5-32 harmony. This role is partly obvious. Berg renders

the cadences in three different registers, in each case preceding the 5-32 chord by

a harmony clearly partitioned between the hands into 3-11 triads. The LH triads

are built in succession on E I), on A ij, and (implicitly) on D t|, carrying further the


153

rising-fourths cycle of the preceding phrase. Those of the RH are in each case

located on roots four semitones above those of the LH Because Berg omits the

expected LH A I) in the last cadence, but adds a treble g b to the first, the three

cadential approach chords are linked in a set-class inclusion / complementation

alliance: 5-21 — 6-20 — 7-21. (The final vocal phrase may also be held to

embody trichords 3-11 and 3-5 in the folds of its undulating line )

Set class 3-11 also plays a more obscure role in the design of these final

cadences, and it is Schoenberg who draws our attention to that role Earlier in this

study I noted that the theory embodied m Schoenberg’s Harmonielehre is an

obvious source for many of the harmonic idioms in Berg’s Four Songs. Since

Schoenberg was compiling the book while he was advising Berg on the songs’

composition, it is not wholly surprising to find him citing in Harmonielehre

(Schoenberg 1978, 420) a few of the harmonies from Song 4. Those that captured

Schoenberg’s interest are the 5-32 pentachord in m 22 together with the

immediately following 6-20 chord (omitting Berg’s added g\>2). Schoenberg cites

this pair late in his final chapter, “Aesthetic Evaluation of Chords with Six or More

Tones,” where the discussion turns on how little weight conventional root

relationships carry in this evaluation. What then, he asks, underlies the apparent

logic of Berg’s chord sequence0

Why it is that way and why it is correct, I carnot yet explain in any detail In general, it is self-evident to those who accept my vie w concerning the nature of dissonance. But that it is correct, I firmly believe, and a number of others believe it too. It seems that the progression of such chords can be justified by the chromatic scale. The chord progression seems to be regulated by the tendency to include in the second chord tones that were missing in the first, generally those a half step higher or lower. Nevertheless, the voices seldom move by half step. (Schoenberg 1978, 420)


154

Schoenberg’s opinion follows from his well known prediction, made earlier in

Harmonielehre, of a “new epoch of polyphonic style” where “harmonies will be

a product o f the voice leading: justified solely bv the melodic lines!” (Schoenberg

1978, 389). Although the pitch voice leading between Berg’s chords is not

semitonal, he now observes, the pitch-c/ass voice leading apparently is

Though Schoenberg delves no deeper into Berg’s contrapuntal logic, we may

confirm his intuition by doing so. Figure 7-2 expands in tabular form on

Schoenberg’s observation It relates the hexachordal sonority Schoenberg cites (and

also its heptachordal expansion) not to the previous, but to the following 5-32

chord The results are equivalent to Schoenberg’s but we are now co* ering as

Figure 7-2. Song 4: mm. 22-25, patterns of pc voice leading in piano harmonies.

Full Sets: Pitch-Class Content: 3-11Sets

1 a: 6-20 3 4 (6) 7 8 11 0 [0,4,7](7-21) i I5-32 2 3 6 9 11 [11,3,6]

b 6-20 3 4 (6) 7 8 11 0 [0,3,7](7-21) •i' ^5-32 2 3 6 9 11 [11,2,6]

2 6-20 0 1 4 5 8 9 [1,5,8]s

5-32 2 3 6 9 11 [2,6,9]

3 a 5-21 1 2 5 6 10 [10,2,5]‘n 'n

5-32 2 3 6 9 11 [11,3,6]

b: 5-21 1 2 5 6 10 [10,1,5]s.

5-32 2 3 6 9 11 [11,2,6]


155

a unit the first of the final cadential motions. The table then goes on to chart the

other two cadences.

With sonorities of five to seven pcs, semitonal relationships between those in

successive chords are bound to be plentiful. What is intriguing here is that in each

cadence the most consistent patterns of semitonal pc movement (consistent in that

the movement is all in the same direction) involve trichords of class 3-11. In fact,

in the first and last cadences, two such patterns (labelled “a” and “b”) may be

traced. Notably—and running counter to Schoenberg’s observation—set 3-11

[11,3,6] is also shared between the chords in cadence 1. (Reference back to

Example 7-9 further reveals that the total pc content of the first cadence constitutes

a set of 3-11 ’s complementary class, 9-11.) If some of the first sonorities we

examined in this song cycle were tonal and clearly derived from triads, the last

represent the transformation of the triad, its appearance in an essentially atonal

guise.

In the final section of Song 4 Berg seems to achieve an integration of structure

characteristic of the earlier three songs: a sense that the tonal and atonal designs

not only co-exist but support each other. Such an integration is also perceptible

elsewhere in this piece: most readily in the opening vocal tetrachord and its return

in m. ! 7, and in the perfect-fifth dysds of mm. 10-11. Elsewhere, as I perceive it,

the co-existence is shakier. Whether because of the dramatic text or because Berg

was aiming at new ways of handling pitch materials, neither the tonal and atonal

designs alone, nor their synthesis have the integral quality found in Songs 1-3. The

elements—familiar elements—are all present, the overall force unifying them

appears absent.

Herein, perhaps, lies the real distinction from the other songs. Calling those

songs “tonal” and Song 4 “atonal” avoids the evidence that they all share much

material It avc ls the evidence that they all exhibit levels of structure which


156

engage both specific pcs and, apart from pc content, certain intervallic properties.

That they all do so does not make them wholly equivalent. It does, however, bring

us closer to a perception of continuity across the “break-up of tonality .”


CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSIONS

“Der Meister des kleinsten Ubergangs”—“The master of the smallest

transition”—was Theodor Adorno’s term for his onetime teacher Alban Berg

(Adorno 1968; 1991, xv). In the context of the present study, Adorno’s phrase is

apt. My aim has been to demonstrate that in Berg’s Four Songs the transition

between tonality and atonality—more precisely between tonal and atonal

contexts—is quite small indeed. The tonal and atonal realms of pitch design m

these songs are inextricably interwoven, and they most often support, rather them

oppose, each other.

That this is so, we have seen, is owing in the first instance to the pitch

materials out of which Berg fashions his designs. These materials are particularly

rich in association: the whole-tone collections, the sets of the tritonal-quartal

family, and common-practice sonorities (especially the ascending perfect-fourth

bass cycles, perfect-fifth dyads, and seventh and ninth chords). Most of these

materials have strong links to the familiar world of tertian-diatonic harmony. Many

of them equally display intriguing properties when set against the symmetries of

the chromatic scale. By exploiting both sets of associations, often simultaneously,

Berg bridges the gap between common-practice tonal and atonal levels of structural

meaning. The clearest instance here is provided by Song 2, where we have found

that Berg capitalizes on both the intervallic symmetry of tetrachord 4-25 and its

harmonic function as an altered dominant chord The gap is also bridged by the

repeated emergence, in different songs and in different contexts, of the same

157


158

materials: the whole-tone collections in Songs 1, 2, and 4; the tritonal-quartal sets

in Songs 1, 3, and 4; elements projecting ic 5 in all four songs.

If it were simply a matter of materials, however, it might have sufficed to have

examined isolated passages from these songs. Studies of Berg’s musical language

often deal in such excised passages. Musical meanings, however, are meanings in

context, and it is in the context of the entire songs that Berg’s materials play out

their meanings. My analyses of these songs have intentionally been both detailed

and complete. I have sought to demonstrate that (with the exception of Song 4) the

interplay of Berg’s materials yields tone structures that are multivalent and yet

coherent. It is in witnessing this coherence that we see how tonal and atonal

designs can be mutually supportive rather than mutually exclusive. The first three

songs are grounded in traditional tonal idioms: an encompassing tonic triad in Song

1, tonic-dominant relationships in Songs 2 and 3, and again an encompassing tonic

for the pairing of these central songs. It is this background that affords the overall

coherence within which other relationships operate. And it is the diminishing of

this framework that results in the diminished coherence I find in Song 4.

What of the cycle as a whole: is there an overall coherence here? Apart from

its limited inventory of materials and structural procedures, I think not. I certainly

disagree with the assertion that the entire cycle is linked through a reliance on one,

ubiquitous sonority. If a thread runs through this cycle it is probably a

developmental one. My analyses imply a tendency on Berg’s part to move away

from materials and procedures linked to the common practice towards those with

fewer ties to the past. Just as we can trace this tendency in the successive chapters

of Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, we can trace it from the seventh chords of Song

3, through the whole-tone oscillations of Songs 2 and 1, to the complex sonorities

and interval-succession patterns of Song 4. As I intimated in Chapter 1, such a


159

development may lend support, if not decisive support, to the view that Berg

composed the songs in this order

My analyses also flesh out an aspect of these songs of which Berg scholars

have long been aware. It is commonly asserted that Berg developed in his early

works the stylistic principles that distinguish his later music. Of Song 4, for

instance, Perle writes “The special quality that marked Berg’s musical language to

the end of his life, the conjunction of an emotional intensity that is typical of full

blown romanticism with the most rigorous and abstract formalism, is already fully

asserted in this final number of Opus 2.” (Perle 1980, 6). A close appreciation of

the Four Songs and of Berg’s other student works provides an invaluable basis

with which to approach his later masterworks. And a detailed appreciation of the

interplay of tonal and atonal pitch designs in these works is especially invaluable,

given Berg’s widespread reputation for fusing tonal and atonal principles even in

his dodecaphonic works.

This reputation of Berg’s makes him a natural subject for an examination of the

confluence of tonality and atonality. 1 believe, however, that the present study has

implications apart from the concerns of Berg scholarship—implications for the

wider study of pitch structure in early twentieth-century music I suspect it is futile

to argue for the general adoption of the se definitions of tonality and atonality

which underlie my theory of their interaction in Berg’s songs. Alternative views

are far too deeply ingrained for that. 1 can hope, however, to have demonstrated

the utility of adopting these definitions. In much early twentieth-century music,

materials and relationships from the common practice are closely mingled with

those that fail to conform to the tonal tradition. Many of the elements of pitch

design found m the works of Scriabin, Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, and their

contemporares—tertian-diatonic and whole-tone elements, but also octatomc and

other materials—admit multiple structural implications A concept of tonality which


160

is aligned only with the tertian-diatonic tradition, and which severs tonality from

interaction with atonal levels of order, fails to do justice to the rich experience this

music yields. I believe that an understanding of such richness is more likely to

emerge from heeding Webern’s assertion that “it’s impossible to fix a dividing line

between old and new ”


APPENDIX

TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS

1.Schlafen, Schlafen, Nichts als Schlafen! Kein Erwachen, keinen Traum!Jener Wehen, die mich trafcn,Leisestes Erinnem kaum.Dafl ich, wenn des Lebens Fiillc Nieder klingt in meine R u h \Nut noch tiefer mich verhulle,Fester zu die Augen thu !

To sleep, to sleep, nothing but to sleep! No awaking, no dreaming!Of those sorrows that befell me.Barely the faintest memory ,So that I. when life's abundance Echoes down into my rest.Shall enshroud myself all the deeper, And close my eyes even tighter!

Friedrich Hebbci from "Dem Schmerz sein Recht"

2 .

Schlafend tragt man mich in mein Heimatland.Feme komm ' ich her, liber Gipfel, iiber Schlundc. liber ein dunkles Meer in mein Heimatland.

Sleeping I am earned to my homeland.From afar I come, over mountain, over ravine, over a dark sea to mv homeland

3.Nun ich der Ricsen Starksten libcrwand. aus dem dunkelsten Land mich heimfandan einer weiben Marchenhand —

Halien schwer die Glocken.Und ich wanke durch die StraCen schlafbefangen.

Now I overcame the strongest o f giants.out o f the darkest landfound my way homeled by a white fairy-tale hand —

Heavily the bells resound And I totter through the streets captured by sleep.

161


162

4Warm die Liilte,es sprieCt Gres auf sonnigen Wiesen Horch! —Horch, es flotet die Nachtigall...Ich will singen:

Droben hoch in d us tern Bergforst, es schmilzt und sickcrt kalter Schnee, ein Madchen in grauen KJeide lehnt an feuchtcm Eichstamm, krank sind ihre zarten Wangen, die grauen Augen fiebem durch Dusterriesenstamme.“Er kommt noch nicht. Er lafit mich

warten”..

Stirb!Der Eine stirbt, daneben der Andere icbt: Das macht die Welt so tiefschdn.

Alfred Mombcrt from “Der Gliihende"

Warm the breezes.grass sprouts in sunny meadowsHark! —Hark, a nightingale pipes...1 will sing:

High above in the gloomy mountain forest, cold snow melt and trickles, a girl in a grey dress leans against a damp oak trunk, her tender cheeks are sick, her grey eyes stare feverishly through the giant, gloomy tree trunks. “He's still not coming. He's letting me

wait” ...

Die!The one di~s, while the other lives:That makes the world so deeply beautiful.


LIST OF SOURCES CITED

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Aidwell, Edward; and Schachter, Carl. 1989. Harmony and Voice Leading. 2d edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Adomo, Theodor W. 1968. Alban Berg. Der Meister der kleinsten Obergangs. Osterreichische Komponisten des XX. Jahrhunderts, vol. 15. Vienna: Elizabeth Lafite.

Adomo, Theodor W. 1991. Alban Berg. Master of the smallest link. Translated by Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.

Ayrcy, Craig. 1982. “Berg’s ‘Scheideweg’. Analytical Issues in Op. Hn " Music Analysis 1/2: 198-202.

Baker, James M. 1983. “Schenkerian Analysis and Post-Tonal Music.” In Aspects of Schenkerian Theory, pp. 153-186. Edited by David Beach. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Baker, James M. 1986. The Music o f Alexander Scriabin. New Haven Yale University Press.

Baker, James M. 1990. “Voice Leading in Post-Tonal Music: Suggestions for Extending Schenker’s Theory.” Musical Analysis 9: 177-200.

Baker, James M. 1993. “Post-Tonal Voice Leading.” In Models o f Musical Analysis: Early Twentieth-Century Music, pp 20-41 Edited by Jonathan Dunsby. Oxford: Blackwell.

Benjamin, William. 1977. “Tonality without Fifths: remarks on the first movement of Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments.” In Theory Only 2: 53-70; 3: 9-31.

Berg, Alban. 1930. “What is Atonality?” Translated by M.D. Herter Norton. In Music Since 1900, by Nicolas Slonimsky, pp. 1311-1315. 4th ed. New York: Scribners, 1971.

163


164

Berg, Alban. 1971. Letters to his Wife. Edited, translated and annotated by Bernard Grun. London: Faber and Faber.

Berg, Erich Alban. 1976. Alban Berg. Leben und Werk in Daten und Bildem. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag

Berg, Erich Alban. 1985 Der unverbesserliche Romantiker: Alban Berg 1885-1935. Vienna: Oesterreichischer Bundesverlag.

Berry, Wallace. 1976 Structural Functions in Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Brand, Juliane, Hailey, Christopher, and Harris, Donald, eds. 1987. The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence. Selected Letters. New York: W.W. Norton.

Burkhart, Charles. 1986 Anthology for Musical Analysis. 4th ed. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Camer. Mosco. 1983. Alban Berg: The Man and the Work. 2d ed. New York; Holmes 8c Meier

Chadwick, Nicholas 1971 “Berg's Unpublished Songs in the Oesterreichische National- bibliothek.” Mu^ic and Letters 52: 123-140.

Cinnamon, Howard. 1984. “Some Elements of Tonal and Motivic Structure in In diesen Wintertagen, Op 14, no 2 by Arnold Schoenberg: A Schoenbergian-Schenkenan Study ” In Theory Only 7/7-8: 23-49

Dahlhaus, Carl 1980. “Tonality.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19: 51-55.

Dalen, Brenda. 1989. “‘Freundschaft, Li . 1 Welt’. The Secret Programme of the Chamber Concerto.” In The Berg Comp n, pp 141-180. Edited by Douglas Jarman. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

DeVoto, Mark. 1989. “Berg the Composer of Songs.” In The Berg Companion, pp 35-66 Edited by Douglas Tirman. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Devoto, Mark. 1991. “Alban Berg and Creeping Chromaticism.” In Alban Berg. Historical and Analytical Perspectives, pp. 57-78. Edited by David Gable and Robert P. Morgan. Oxford Clarendon Press

Dunsby, Jonathan, ed. 1993. Models o f Musical Analysis. Early Twentieth-Century Music. Oxford: Blackwell.


165

Forte, Allen. 1973. The Structure o f Atonal Music. New Haven and London Yale University Press.

Forte, Allen. 1978. “Schoenberg's Creative Evolution: The Path to Atonality.” The Musical Quarterly 64 133-176

Forte, Allen. 1981. “The Magical Kaleidoscope: Schoenberg's Firsi / tonal Masterwork, Opus 11, no. 1.” Journal o f the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 5 127-168.

Forte, Allen. 1988. “New Approaches to the Linear Analysis of Music ” Journal o f the American Musicological Society 41: 315-348.

Forte, Allen; and Gilbert, Steven E. 1982. Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis New York W.W. Norton.

Green, Douglass M. 1977. “Berg’s De Profundis: Tl.«; Finale of the Lyrtc Suite. " International Alban Berg Society Newsletter 5 13ff

Griffiths, Paul. 1980. “Webern, Anton (Friedrich Wilhelm von) ” In The New Grove Dictionary o f Music and Musicians, 20 270-282.

Hilmar, Rosemary. 1978. Alban Berg. Leben und Wirken in Wien bis zu seinen ersten Erfolgen als Komponist. Wiener Muskwissenschaftliche Beitrage, 10 Vienna: Hermann Bohlaus

Hilmar, Rosemary. 1981. Katalog der Musikhandschriften, Schrtften and Studien Albans Bergs im Fond Alban Berg und der weiteren handschriftlichen Ouellen im Besitz der Osterreichischen Nationalbibhothek Alban Berg Studien, Vol 1. Vienna: Universal.

Hilmar, Rosemary. 1984. “Alban Berg's Studies with Schoenberg.” Journal o f the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 8: 7-29.

Jarman, Douglas. 1979. The Music o f Alban Berg. London, Boston: Faber & Faber

Jarman, Douglas. 1987. “Alban Berg: Origins of a Method.” Music Analysis 6: 273-288

Jarman, Douglas. 1989. ban Berg, Wilhelm Fliess, and the Secret Programme of the Violin Concerto.” in The Berg Companion, pp. 181-194. Edited by Douglas Jarman. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Kandinsky, Wassily, and Marc, Franz, eds. 1912. Der Blaue Reiter. Dokumentarische Neuausgabe. Edited by Klaus Lankheit. Munich: Piper, 1967.


166

Kett, Stephen W. 1989. “A Conservative Revolution: the M usic o f the Four Songs Op. 2.” In The Berg Companion, pp 67-87. Edited by Douglas Jarman. Boston: Northeastern U niversity Press..

Kostka, Stefan. 1990. Materials and Techniques o f Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs. Prentice Hall.

Larson, Steve. 1987. “A Tonal Model o f an ‘A tonal’ J ;e; Schdnberg’s Opus 15, N um ber 2" Perspectives o f New Music 25: 418-433.

Lehrdahl, Fred 1989 “Atonal prolongational structure.” Contemporary Music Review 4 65-87

Lewis, Christopher 1987. “Mirrors and M etaphors. On Schoenberg and N ineteenth- Century Tonality.” 19th Century Music l i /1 : 26-42; reprinted in Music at the Turn o f Century', pp. 15-31. Edited by Joseph Kerman. Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1990.

Metz, Paui W. 1991. “Set Theory, Clock D iagram s, and B erg 's Op. 2, no. 2.” In Theory Only 12/1-2 1-17.

M ombert, Alfred. 1963 Dichttingen. Gedicht-Werke. 3 vols. Edited by Elizabeth Herberg. M unich: Kosel Verlag

M organ, Robert P. 1991a. “The Eternal Return: Retrograde and Circular Form m B e rg " In Alban Berg. Historical and Analytical Perspectives, pp. 111-149. Edited by D av .J G able and Robert P Morgan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Morgan, Robert P. 1991b Twentieth'Century Music. New York. W.W. Norton.

M orrison, Charles D. 1991, “Prolongation in the Final M ovem ent o f Bartok’s String Q uartet No. 4 ” Music Theory Spectrum 13/2: 179-196.

O gden, Will. 1981 “ How Tonality Functions in Schoenberg 's Opus 11, No. 1.” Joun. -I o f the Arnold Schoenberg Institute 5/2: 169-181

Parks, Richard S 1985 “Tonal Analogues as Atonal Resources and their Relation to Form in Debussy s Chromatic Etude.” Journal o f Music Theory 29' 33-60.

Parks. Richard S. 1989 The Music o f Claude Debussy. New Haven: Yale University Press

Pearsall, Edward R, 1991 “Harmonic Progressions and Prolongation in P c .f -Tonal M usic ” Music Analysis 10/3: 345-355


167

Perle, George. 1977a. “Berg’s Master Array of the Interval Cycles.” The Musical Quarterly 63: 1-30.

Perle, George. 1977b “The Secret Program of the Lyric Suite ” International Alban Society Newsletter 5: 4-12.

Perle, George. 1980a. “Berg, Alban (Maria Johannes).” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2: 524-538.

Perle, George. 1980b. The Operas of Alban Berg. Vol I: Wozzeck. Berkeley: University of California Press

Perle, George. 1985. The Operas of Alban Berg. Vol 2: Lulu. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Perle, George. 1989. “The Firs* Four Notes of Lulu.” In The Berg Companion, pp. 269-289. Edited by Douglas Jarman. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Pople, Anthony. 1993. “Secret Programmes: Themes and Techniques in Recent Berg Scholarship.” Music Analysis 12/3: 381-399.

Redlich, H.F. 1957. Alban Berg- The Man and his Music. New York. Abelard-Schurr.an,

Rockmaker, Jody. 1990. “The Evolution of a Method.” Unpublished paper, presented at University of Western Ontario Music Theory Conference, London, Ontario, March 1990.

Reich, Willi. 1965. Alban Berg. Translated by Cornelius Cardew. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

Salzer, Felix. 1952. Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music, 2 vols. New York Charles Boni; reprint ed., New York: Dover, 1962.

Samson, Jim. 1977. Music in Transition. A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900- 1920. New York: W.W. Norton.

Schenker, Heinrich. 1979. Free Composition (Derfreie Satz). 2 vols Tiaislated by Ernst Oster. New York, London: Longman.

Schmalfeldt, Janet. 1991 “Berg’s Path to Atonality: The Piano Sonata, Op. 1.” In Alban Berg. Historical and Analytical Perspectives, pp 79-i09 Edited by David Gable and Robert P Morgan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1922. Harmonielehre. Rev. ed. [Vienna] Universal


168

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1969. Structural Functions of Harmony. Rev. ed. Edited by Leonard Stein. New York: W.W. Norton.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1975. Style and Idea. Edited by Leonard Stem Translations by Leo Black London: Faber & Faber.

Schoenberg, Arnold. 1978. Theory of Harmony. Translated by Roy E. Carter. London: Faber & Faber.

Simms, Bryan R 1986a. Music of the Twentieth Century. Style and Structure. New York: Schirmer.

Simms, Bryan R. 1986b. Music of the Twentieth Century. An Anthology. New York: Schirmer.

Stadlen, Peter. 1981 “Berg’s Cryptography” In Alban Berg Symposion Wien 1980: Tagungsbertcht, pp. 173ff. Edited by Rudolf Klein. Alban Berg Studien, vol. 2. Vienna: Universal.

Straus, Joseph N. 1987. “The Problem of Prolongation in Post-Tonal Music.” Journal of Music Theory 31 1-25

Straus, Joseph N. 1990 Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Stuckenschmidt, Hans. 1965. “Debussy or Berg? The Mystery of a Chord Progression.” Translated by Piero Weiss. The Musical Quarterly 51: 453-459.

Travis, Roy. 1959. “Towards a New Concept of Tonality.” Journal of Music Theory 3: 257-284.

Travis, Roy. 1966 “Directed Motion in Schoenberg and Webern.” Perspectives of New Music 4: 84-89

Watkins. Glenn. 1988. Soundings. Music in the Twentieth Century. New York: Schirmer.

Webem, Anton. 1963. The Path to the New Music. Edited by Willi Reich. Translated by Leo Black. Vienna: Universal.

Wennerstrom, Mary H 1977 “Pitch Relationships in Berg’s Songs, Op. 2.” Indiana Theory Review 1 12-22.

Wilson, Paul. 1984. “Concepts of Prolongation and Bartok’s Opus 20.” Music Theory Spectrum 6: 79-89


169

Wilson, Paul. 1992. The Music o f Bela Bartok. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Wintle, Christopher. 1980. “Schoenberg’s Harmony: Theory and Practice.’ Journal oj the Arnold Schoenberg Institute. 4/1: 50-67.

Wintle, Christopher 1994. “Recent Berg Scholarship: Responses to Anthony Pople.” Music Analysis 13/2-3: 310-312.

SCORES

Berg, Alban. Jugendlieder. 2 vols. Edited by Christopher Hailey. Vienna: Universal, 1985.

Berg, Alban. Op. 1 Sonate fur Klavier. Berlin: Robert Lienau, 1926.

Berg, Alban. Sieben Friihe Lieder Vienna: Universal, 1928

Berg, Alban. Vier Lieder fur eine Singstimme mit Klavier, Opus 2. Berlin: Robert Lienau; Vienna: Universal, 1928.


VITA

NAME:

PLACE OF BIRTH:

YEAR OF BIRTH:

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION AND DEGREES:

HONOURS AND AWARDS:

Gary Richard Tucker

Grand Falls, Newfoundland

1956

Mount Allison University Sackville, New Brunswick 1973-1977 B. Mus.

The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario 1977-1982 M.A.

Lincoln College, Oxford University Oxford, England1980-1983 (post-graduate research)

The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario1987-1995 Ph D.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowships 1980-1983

William Lyon MacKenzie King Travelling Scholarship1980-1981

170


171

RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE:

British Government Overseas Research Student Support Scholarships1981-1983

George A Proctor Memorial Awards (U W O.)1988, 1990

Ontario Graduate Scholarships1988-1989

Teaching AssistantThe University of Western Ontario1977-1979

Assistant EditorStudies in Music from the University o fWestern Ontario1978

LecturerThe University of Western Ontario 1984-1994

LecturerYork University1986-1987

LecturerMount Allison University 1994 to date


tesis berg op2

Documents

hisher permission

copyright owner

la disposition des personne

ni des extraits substantiels

sell copies of hisher

thesis available

national library of

lauteur conserve la