Expressive Intersections in Brahms by Smith Peter H. Platt Heather

Author:Smith, Peter H., Platt, Heather
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2012-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Part Three

6 Sequence as Expressive Culmination in the Chamber Music of Brahms

Ryan McClelland

Sequences permeate tonal music, with patterned motion among chordal roots appearing, at least briefly, in almost any phrase. Even when defined narrowly as coordinated melodic-harmonic motion, sequences are almost never entirely absent from a tonal composition. Sequences, moreover, have characteristic formal and expressive functions, which evolved over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the Classical style, sequences appear most frequently in developmental passages, such as the start of the continuation of a sentence, the transition of a sonata exposition, and the development of a sonata form. Their primary expressive connotations are motion, transience, instability, and tension. Due perhaps to the nineteenth century’s preoccupation with emergent structures and Romantic longing, sequences become increasingly prominent features of principal thematic sections, with a corresponding decrease in the relative proportion of sequences found in developmental passages. In addition, sequences increasingly lead to further sequences rather than to stable tonal goals.

Sequences nevertheless remain central to Brahms’s developmental passages, even as they occur in his principal thematic units with some frequency. The topic of this essay, however, is a different deployment of sequential writing. In Brahms’s music—especially in his chamber works—sequences often provide an expressive culmination within a final thematic return (in rondo-like forms) or in a coda. These culminating sequences fall into two expressive types. The first includes powerful sequences that maintain tension until the final cadence and thus retain much of their conventional expressive import. When Brahms employs an ascending sequence in his codas, it is inevitably of this expressive type. When powerful culminating sequences are based on descending motion, they remain end-directed but frequently convey an affirmative, even celebratory, affect. The eventual tonal arrival is the structural goal, but the sequence itself provides an expressive high point. Most of these sequences employ a relatively long journey along the circle of fifths and are often decorated with chordal sevenths and/or suspensions. The second expressive type includes sequences that offer a culmination through transcendence rather than vigor. These sequences, which almost invariably involve the descending circle of fifths and the indication dolce, use repetition to suggest circularity or stasis, implying a reverie or reflection on the preceding musical arguments. The ensuing illustrations from each category highlight how these contrasting culminating sequences engage earlier thematic content and thereby create large-scale structural processes and expressive meanings.

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