Musical Improvisation and Open Forms in the Age of Beethoven by Borio Gianmario Carone Angela & Angela Carone

Author:Borio, Gianmario,Carone, Angela & Angela Carone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Example 6.4 Hummel, Fantasia in C major, S 190 (WoO 8) (Recollections of Paganini), modelled on Paganini’s Caprice in C major.

The distance in time between the start of the piece and this ‘memory’ is replicated by the Andante cantabile marking, together with the remote realm of A♭ major and added melodic ornamentation; together, these factors evoke the serene introspection of a distant memory. The recollection of slow openings or introductions is a regular feature of multi-sectional fantasias, exemplified also by Hummel’s ‘Neukomm’ Fantasia and Dussek’s Fantasia in F minor, Op. 76.10 One also finds it regularly in Liszt’s works.11 The purpose in the Hummel fantasias might be to demarcate the final region of the structure. In the ‘Paganini’ Fantasia the recollection precedes the two Concerto-finale segments; in the ‘Neukomm’ Fantasia the opening returns to introduce the final borrowed song. In the ‘Paganini’ Fantasia, particularly, the recollection can be connected with the ‘double structural function’ famously cultivated by Liszt, whereby a multi-movement form is insinuated within a single-movement entity. In Hummel’s ‘Paganini’ Fantasia the C major Caprice would correspond to a slow introduction; the E major Caprice a first movement; the Guitar Quartet a minuet and trio; the Andante cantabile a short slow movement and the two Concerto finales a concluding movement.12 The immediate effect of the A♭ major permutation of the C major Caprice, however, is to recall the opening as if from a distance, thus encoding time and memory as a tangible continuum within the piece. The effect resembles ‘reminiscence’, as articulated by Andrew Davis with reference to works by Chopin and Liszt: a ‘reminiscence’ is formed ‘when the music shifts to an atemporal state in which it can be construed as freely recalling or longing for an idealized, unattainable past’ (Davis, 2013, p. 100). Davis invokes Karol Berger’s distinction between ‘temporal’ and ‘atemporal’ categories, as functions of narrativity within Romantic-era instrumental music: ‘[T]emporal music is that which advances a movement’s principal formal trajectory, while atemporal music suspends the progress of the form and makes the listener wait for a resumption of temporal progress’ (ibid., p. 99).

Amongst Davis’s examples, in Liszt’s Sonata in B minor, are the dual presentation of the lyrical theme shown above in Example 6.3. As in the ‘Hummel’ Fantasia, because of the theme’s earlier occurrence, the ‘glance backward into the past is literal’; and the A major presentation ‘acquires a distant, removed quality’ for similar reasons to Hummel’s A♭ recollection of the C major Caprice: a lower dynamic level, heightened expression and greater ‘metrical elasticity’ (ibid., pp. 103–106). The precision of Liszt’s envisaged effect is confirmed by the marking dolcissimo con intimo sentimento. Davis could also have mentioned the F♯ major version of the melody that occurs close to the end of the ‘slow-movement’ section of the Sonata, shortly before the fugue. Here, the progressive shortening of the melodic units and chromatic accompaniment create the effect of an even more distant ‘memory’, or even a ‘memory of a memory’ (see above, Example 6.3).

Whereas in literature

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.