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Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Kleiner Morgenwanderer -- Schumann

To begin, there are two major structural divisions (meaning three major structural bodies). First at the beginning of the third system after the dotted double bar, and then in the middle of the fifth system right after the one of the first beat of the measure twenty (also punctuated with the dotted double bar). The piece begins and ends in A major, but does do a little modulating in the middle section. The first section is expository, and I do not consider it a period (though it would be parallel if it were), because it is composed of two symmetric and almost identical 4-measure phrases that both end in half cadences. And I don't see the second phrase as ending in a PAC in E (the dominant) because as the music moves into the second section, it stays in A for a pickup and another full measure before wandering into E with any marked certainty. In support of this claim, instead of continuing an E major triad, the second section begins with a E7--marking the tonality as dominant and not as tonic. The second section is also composed of two phrase groups--though these are developmental in character. The theme from the exposition is clearly distinguishable, though in the first phrase its exact melody altered and then taken into the key of E major where it concludes on a suspended IAC. Just like in the expository section, the melodic material is again repeated, this time the pickup and the first two bars are exactly the same as the orginal melody, only the chord structure underneath is changed, then the phrase alters and is extending, leaving the two phrase groups lacking in symmetry. The second phrase group also restores the orginal key of A major. After the development is repeated, then we come to a ten-measure terminal section which expounds upon the rhymic gesture of the original pickup before measure one. It again, can be broken down into two phrase groups, though the cadence between them would be a weak monophonic sol-do. They are parallel, and this is why I distinguish them as two separate phrase groups, as the melodic gesture is repeated at the end of the fifth measure. These too are assymetric--there is a little extension at the end of the last phrase group. The section ends on a PAC in A Major. I say terminal, because all this section really does is go from tonic to dominant and very little else.

1 comment:

Spoonaloompa said...

Thank you very much for justifying your interpretive choices - the reasoning behind decisions is at least as interesting as the interpretation itself.