MUSC3432 Tonal Music Analysis

Analysis of song

Week 12
Fall 2022
 Topics of interest in song analysis

• Words, music and vocality

• Voice and persona
• Text-music relationships
• Analysis and interpretation
• Case studies
Meaning in song
1. When you listen to a song,
which of the following three
factors do you tend to focus on?
• the words (text);
• the music;
• the singing (vocality)
2. Which of these three factors is
most important in determining
the song’s meaning?
3. Do your answers differ,
depending on what type of song
you are listening to – e.g.,
classical or pop, Cantonese or
English or foreign language?
 The relative importance of text, music, and vocality can vary in
different vocal genres
1. Music takes centre stage
– There are no words
Rachmaninoff, Vocalise, Op 34 No, 14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZIQ2pHaJ1I

2. Words take centre stage

– Dem beat at CUHK
https://youtu.be/vZhAjfrwZ4Q
– Traditional narrative songs with repeated, formulaic accompaniment, such
as nanyin 南音
客途秋恨 https://youtu.be/TW6KEsRCdgI?t=69

3. Singing takes centre stage

– Scat singing in jazz (vocal improvisation with nonsense syllables)
Ella Fitzergerald and Mel Torme https://youtu.be/9CbVy1NnB4g
Text, music and vocality are domains of meaning
that overlap in song
 Analysing songs: questions for consideration

1. How would analysis of songs differ from the analysis of

instrumental music? Would you examine harmony, rhythm,
form and other structural parameters in the same way?
2. To what extent would your understanding of the text affect
your music-analytical decisions?
3. How would one analyse text? How would textual and musical
analysis work together?
4. How would considerations of vocality (e.g., timbre, register,
projection) affect the analysis of the musical work? Are such
elements built into the song by the composer, or are they
determined by the performer?
 The German Lied

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

 Common Assumptions
1. The words provide all
the meaning
>> is this always true?

2. The music supports or

enhances the meaning of
the words
>> how?

Text-music relations
Common assumptions about text-music relations

• The music depicts the overall mood and character of

the text, e.g., “sad text requires sad music”
>> musical means of depicting sadness: minor mode,
slow tempo. ‘sigh’ figures, etc

• The text tells a story, and the music dramatizes it,

e.g., Schubert, “Erlkönig”
Implicit in these assumptions:
• Meaning of song = meaning of the lyrics
• Meaning of the lyrics = literal meaning of the individual words

What is often overlooked:

• Words imply a speaker. The vocal persona and his/her situation
and state of mind are often more important than what they are
literally ‘saying’
• In poetry, ideas and emotions are often not stated directly. One
has to ‘read between the lines’
• Meaning can also derive from the structure of the text (e.g.,
syntax, patterns of sound, arrangement of imagery)
• Music can also have meaning independently from the words
 Analysing German Lieder:
overview

• How elements in the music (tonal

and rhythmic features, form,
motivic design, etc) structurally
correlate to elements in the poem
(imagery, syntax, form, tone,
emotional progress, etc.). Not
necessarily word painting.
• How the music interprets the poem
 Points of analytical interest
• Do the words suggest action and agency? Situation?
• How many ‘characters’ are there?
• What is the role of the piano: a character (same or
different)? The protagonist’s psychological state?
Background and atmosphere?
• How are text and music related structurally?
– Same
– Different
• How does the music relate to the meaning of the text?
– Support (gives same information)
– Supplement (adds more information)
– Contradict (gives different information)
TWO SONGS FROM SCHUBERT,
DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN

Annotated scores on Blackboard

 Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin:
Compositional background
• One of the first romantic song cycles
• written around the time Schubert was first hospitalized with syphilis 1823; pub
1824
• poems by Wilhelm Müller
• the poems were already a poetic cycle, pub 1820
• originally 24 poems, Schubert chose 20

• There is a story told from the point of view of a single protagonist, a young man
• Susan Youens (musicologist): “Each song presents one moment of intense
emotion, one stage in the story, paradoxically complete but more complete in
context.”
 The story
• At the beginning of the cycle, a young man wanders happily
through the countryside. He comes upon a brook, which he
follows to a mill. He decides to stay and work there.
• He falls in love with the boss’s beautiful daughter (‘die schöne
Müllerin’). Initially she doesn’t notice him, but by the middle
of the cycle, she accepts the gift of a green ribbon from him.
He thinks this means she loves him back.
• Disaster! He discovers that she already has a boyfriend, who is
a hunter.
• The young man despairs. By the end of the song cycle, he
drowns himself in the brook that initially brought him to the
mill.
 Song No. 16
‘Die liebe Farbe’
(The beloved colour)
 Song 16, ‘Die Liebe Farbe,’ Stanza 1

In Grün will ich mich kleiden, In green I will dress myself,

in grüne Tränenweiden; In green weeping willows:
Mein Schatz hat’s Grün so gern. My darling is so fond of green.
Will suchen einen Zypressenhain, I will look for a cypress thicket,
Eine Heide von grünen Rosemarein: A hedge of green rosemary:
Mein Schatz hat’s grun so gern. My darling is so fond of green.

• Recurrent image of green

All three stanzas of the poem (English translation only)
1. In green I will dress myself, Discussion:
In green weeping willows:
My darling is so fond of green.
• Why the obsession with the
I will look for a cypress thicket,
A hedge of green rosemary:
colour green?
My darling is so fond of green. • What are the possible meanings
of this colour?
2. Away to the joyous hunt! • What is the protagonist feeling
Away through heath and hedge! and thinking?
My darling is so fond of hunting.
The beast that I hunt is Death;
The heath is what I call the grief of love.
My darling is so fond of hunting.

3. Dig me a grave in the turf,

Cover me with green grass:
My darling is so fond of green.
No black cross, no colourful flowers,
Green, everything green all around!
My darling is so fond of green.
 Green: Multiple layers of meaning
• Traditional associations: green = nature, spring, renewal
• Song 13, ‘Mit dem grünen Lautenbande’: the beloved’s
favourite colour. The Miller gives her a green hair ribbon as a
token of his love.
• Songs 14 and 15, ‘Der Jäger’ and ‘Eifersucht und Stolz’: green
is the colour of the hunter, the miller’s rival in love.
• Another traditional association of green = jealousy (“green
with envy,” Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster”)
• In Song 16, ‘Die liebe Farbe’ (The beloved colour), green
becomes the colour of death, the shroud for the Miller’s grave.

• In Song 17 ，‘ Die böse Farbe’ (The hateful colour), the Miller

wants to turn ‘green’ into ‘white’ (colour of death), and bids
farewell to his beloved.
Schubert’s musical setting (Bostridge/Uchida)
 Schubert’s treatment of the poem
In Grün will ich mich kleiden, In green I will dress myself,
in grüne Tränenweiden; In green weeping willows:
Mein Schatz hat’s Grün so gern. My darling is so fond of green.
Mein Schatz hat’s grun so gern My darling is so fond of green.
Will suchen einen Zypressenhain, I will look for a cypress thicket,
Eine Heide von grünen Rosemarein: A hedge of green rosemary:
Mein Schatz hat’s grun so gern My darling is so fond of green.
Mein Schatz hat’s grun so gern My darling is so fond of green.

• Schubert makes the recurrent image of green even more repetitive.

• Every time the line ‘Mein Schatz hat’s grun so gern’ appears, it is set to the
same music.
• In each statement, the line is sung first in major, then in minor, implying a
change in tone ( 語氣 ) and emotion
 Points of analytical interest

• The major/minor modal shift requires interpretation: what is

Schubert trying to express? (NOT word painting – same text!)
• Major= happy, minor = sad?
• The harmony is simple, so Roman numeral labeling would be
rather pointless.
• Are there, instead, stylistic cues that suggest a direction for
interpretation?
• How about the treatment of sonority?
 The stylistic context

• minor tonality
• slow tempo
• funereal rhythms
(‘death knell’)
• Repeated notes
• extreme harmonic
and registral
restrictiveness
 The major/minor modal shift Major is sad!

Major= hopeful?
First “Mein Schatz”: happy?
Second “Mein Schatz”: Major: false hope
• D# signals major mode • major is corrected Minor: reality
• Vocal line leaps up to high F# while D# to minor
is transferred to bass • D# to D♮, and ^3-
His world is turned
• ^2-^1 melodic
But, no PAC, and the dominant has no upside down; his
closure, is in the
leading tone! grief is
bass (piano left
unspeakable
hand), while the
Horn call sonority!!!
vocal part has the
1. Memory
contour of typical
2. Absence/loss
bass line
3. The hunter
 Melodic allusion to Song 13: ironic echo and memory

‘Mit dem grünen

Lautenbande’ (Song
13), bars 8-11

‘Die Liebe Farbe’

(Song 16), bars 10-13
 Reflections

• Even though this song does not employ difficult chord

progressions or metrical dissonances, there is a lot to analyze!
• A simple major/minor modal shift can be expressively rich and
complex
• Analysis is not only about harmony and rhythm. Style and
sonority are important too
 What else does
Song 16, ‘Die liebe
Farbe’, remember?

Modal fluctuations within

the context of B
major/minor evoke
Song 6, “Der Neugierige”
(Curiosity)
 ‘Der Neugierige’ (Song 6), Stanzas 1 & 2
Ich frage keine Blume, I ask no flowers,
Ich frage keinen Stern, I ask no stars;
Sie können mir alle nicht sagen, None of them can tell me,
Was ich erführ so gern. What I so dearly want to know.

Ich bin ja auch kein Gärtner, I am not a gardener,

Die Sterne stehn zu hoch; The stars stand too high;
Mein Bächlein will ich fragen, I will ask my little brook,
Ob mich mein Herz belog. If my heart has deceived me.

Title: “Curiosity”
The miller has an important question; he finds no answer in the flowers
and stars, and he asks the brook. The question is not explicitly stated but
it seems to concern misgivings about love (“Has my heart deceived
me?”)
 ‘Der Neugierige’ (Song 6), Stanzas 3 & 4
O Bächlein meiner Liebe, O little brook of my love,
Wie bist du heut so stumm? Why are you silent today?
Will ja nur eines wissen, I want to know just one thing -
Ein Wörtchen um und um. One little word one way or another.

Ja heißt das eine Wörtchen, ‘Yes’ is one little word;

Das andre heißet Nein, The other is "No",
Die beiden Wörtchen These two little words
Schließen die ganze Welt mir ein. Encompass the entire world for me.

Stanza 3: The miller approaches the brook, which is silent.

Stanza 4: The miller boils the possible answers down to two words, “yes” and
“no”.
 ‘Der Neugierige’ (Song 6), Stanza 5

O Bächlein meiner Liebe, O little brook of my love,

Was bist du wunderlich! How strange you are!
Will's ja nicht weitersagen, I won’t repeat it to anyone else,
Sag, Bächlein, liebt sie mich? Tell me, brook, does she love
me?

Finally, the Miller verbalizes his question: does she love me? No answer is
provided by the brook in the text. (it was “silent” in Stanza 3, now it is
“strange”.)
 Form of the musical setting

• Stanzas 1 and 2: strophic with different endings (AA’)

• Stanzas 3, 4 and 5: ABA’ form
• Together: Intro + ABA’

Recording with score and translation (Bostridge/Uchida):

https://youtu.be/0V8BcIY0t3o?t=710
 Salient musical features

• Modal mixture (first appearing in Stanza 3)

• Stanza 4: tonicization of G major (bVI)
• Stanza 5: back in B major, again with modal mixture
• Changes in accompaniment pattern (discuss)

Intuitively, we associate minor mode with “no” and

major mode with “yes”, but how these associations are
structured in the musical setting is not straightforward
and requires analysis and interpretation
‘Der Neugierige’, bars 1-4 (piano introduction)

G# wants to resolve to F#
No F#!

Motivic
anticipation
of the
fundamental line
Stanza 1-2:

Stanza 1:
- clearly in B major
- missing high F# first
arrives on the word
‘frage’ (ask).
- V is tonicized at b. 12

Stanza 2:
- same music (strophic)
- the brook enters in b.
20-21. It heads back
towards B major but
stops right before the
cadence. The melody is
left hanging.
• Meter changes to 3/4
• ‘flowing’ Stanza 3
accompaniment pattern
suggests the brook
• The brook is not
actually silent; it turns
to the parallel minor.
• The immediate return
to major mode suggests
hope
• the “one word” the
protagonist wants is
supported by an
accented F#, the
missing goal in the
piano introduction
• Ends with PAC in B
major.
 Stanza 4
• F# sets the word “yes,”
D♮ sets the word “no”
• BUT, here D♮ is
supported by a G major
chord (bVI), instead of
tonic minor
• The harmony circles
around G major
statically (word
painting:
‘einschliessen’= literally
means ‘surround’)
• Tonicization of
subdominant >> lack of
forward motion
• F# cancelled by F♮
(V7/IV in G major)
Pitch and modal associations in Stanzas 3-4
 Transition between Stanzas 4 and 5
• Enharmonic modulation back to home key to begin Stanza 5
• F♮ = E#. V7/IV of G major = Ger. 6th of B major.
• Instead of cancelling F#, F♮/E# now leads to F#
Stanza 5
- starts like Stanza 3
- similar fluctuation
between B major and B
minor

What happens when

the miller finally asks,
‘does she love me’? (b.
49-50)?
 ‘Does she love me?’: D#/G♮ and the ‘yes/no’dialectic

Vocal line (Miller): wants the answer to be ‘yes’

• leaps up to F# Romantic Irony!
• wants to cadence in major with a D#
Accompaniment (brook):
• D# is harmonized with Fx
• Fx = enharmonic G♮,which was associated with “no”.
• This resolves to G#, which represented the Miller’s longing in the piano
introduction
• G# is a deceptive goal!!!!
 The piano postlude

Romantic Irony!

• Structural closure at bars 51-22, in B major, when the vocal part ends
• But F#-G♮-F# is still in the piano postlude, casting doubt on a positive answer to
the Miller’s question
 Summary of discussion Complete
song

• Schubert’s music interprets the poem and suggests meanings

that are not directly or explicitly present in the words.
• The music provides an answer to the ‘does she love me’ question
even though the poem does not
• In stanzas 3 to 5, the vocal line and the piano accompaniment
represent different characters (miller and brook)
• Major/minor modal shifts interact with the motivic design in
ways that are analytically and expressively significant
• The music suggests the protagonist’s hopes and desires, as well
as Schubert’s ironic commentary on them
METRICAL DISSONANCE IN BRAHMS, ‘VON
EWIGER LIEBE’,
OP. 43 NO. 1

Annotated score and text with translation on

Blackboard
 ‘Of eternal love’
• Originally thought to be a folk lyric translated into German by
Josef Wenzig, but 20th-century research has shown that it is
the work of Heinrich Hoffman von Fallersleben.
• See text and translation at:
https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/205

Discussion:
• How many speakers?
• Situation and psychology
• Form
 Brahms’ setting
Brahms divides the poem into 5 sections, each with 4 lines of text:

• A1 and A2: narrator introduces situation, characters, and

atmosphere
• B: the boy’s agitation and anxiety
• C1 and C2: the girl’s response

** Listening with score

Anne Sophie von Otter/ Bengt Forsberg

 Think about the following when you listen:

1. Like Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” this is a narrative song with

multiple characters. How does the modified strophic form
distinguish between them?
2. How does Brahms’ music represent the two lovers, and
their feelings, thought processes, psychological states, and
relationship?
3. Brahms’s song is harmonically quite simple, but it is rife
with rhythmic complexities. Trace these moments of
disorientation and suggest an interpretation of their
expressive significance.
 Discussion with score
• The boy’s agitation is clearly represented by extensive metrical
dissonance. But why is metrical dissonance already in the
narrator’s music?
• Aside from metrical consonance, what other stylistic devices
does Brahms use to characterize the girl and her declaration of
eternal love?
• Why does metrical dissonance return at the end of the girl’s
music? Does she succeed in overcoming the boy’s doubts?
• Has Brahms’ setting added meanings that are not in the text?
What is his reading of the poem?
• Is it possible to tell, from the music, whether Brahms believes in
eternal love?
 Discussion: Vocality and persona

• How can the singer distinguish between the different

characters vocally?
• What is the role of the pianist? Does he/she:
– play a supporting role in the vocalist’s depiction of the
different characters
– depict mood or atmosphere
– comment on the characters’ situation, in the manner of a
Greek chorus
– all or some of the above?
– Other?
 For next week

• Final tutorial with Ken and Tom: programmatic uses of sonata

form in Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture. I have
provided the teaching materials for them.
• Final lecture: analysis of opera
• Assignment 5 will be posted tomorrow or Friday (sorry for
delay). The due date will be adjusted so you will still have one
full week to complete it.
• Start thinking about your term paper! (Guidelines have been
provided as part of the course outline)
• If you need help on choosing a paper topic, please ask the TAs
for help.
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