Gillian Robertson AMS/SMT Annual Meeting (Milwaukee, WI) Nov. 6–9, 2014

1Seth Monahan, “Action and Agency Revisited,” Journal of Music Theory 57, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 329. 2Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition (Der freie Satz), vol. 3, bk. 2 of New Musical Theories and Fantasies, ed. and trans. Ernst Oster (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 1977), ex. 40/9.

Brahms’s Emergent Identity: A Narrative Interpretation of Variations on a Theme by

Paganini, Op. 35, Book I

• Fictional Composer: “the person postulated by the analyst as the controlling, intending author of the musical text.”1

• Narrative conflict arises between two fictional composers: “Paganini” (order) and “Brahms” (transgression).

Example 1: Paganini, Violin Caprice in A minor, Op. 1, No. 24 and Schenker’s Sketch of Paganini’s Caprice Theme (Der freie Satz, Figure 40/9).2

Selected Bibliography Agawu, Kofi. Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic

Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Almén, Byron. A Theory of Musical Narrative. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 2008. Burkholder, J. Peter. “The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing

as a Field.” Notes, Second Series, 50, no. 3 (Mar., 1994): 851–70.

Cummings, Craig Campney. “Large-Scale Coherence in Selected Nineteenth-Century Piano Variations.” PhD diss., Indiana University, 1991.

Dickensheets, Janice. “The Topical Vocabulary of the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Musicological Research 31, nos. 2–3 (April, 2012): 97–137.

Hatten, Robert. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Kross, Siegfried. “Brahms and E. T. A. Hoffmann.” 19th-Century Music 5, no. 3 (Spring, 1982): 193–200.

Marston, Nicholas. “Analysing Variations: The Finale of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 74.” Music Analysis 8, no. 3 (October, 1989): 303–24.

Monahan, Seth. “Action and Agency Revisited.” Journal of Music Theory 57, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 321–71.

Nelson, Robert U. The Technique of Variation: A Study of the Instrumental Variation from Antonio de Cabezón to Max Reger. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1948.

Schenker, Heinrich. “Brahms’s Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24.” In Der Tonwille—Pamphlets/Quarterly Publication in Witness of the Immutable Laws of Music, Offered to a New Generation of Youth. Vol. 2, Issues 6–10 (1923–1924), edited by William Drabkin and translated by William Renwick, 77–114. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

________. Free Composition (Der freie Satz), Vol. 3, Bk. 2 of New Musical Theories and Fantasies. Edited and translated by Ernst Oster. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 1977.

Sisman, Elaine R. “Brahms and the Variation Canon.” 19th-Century Music 14, no. 2 (Autumn, 1990): 132–53..

Gillian Robertson AMS/SMT Annual Meeting (Milwaukee, WI) Nov. 6–9, 2014

Table 1: Summary of Topics, Fictional Composers, and Transgressive Elements in Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, Book I.

Section (Var.) Key Topics Fictional Composer Treatment of Arp.

Ascent

Harmonic Changes (e.g. mm.

1–4 of Theme)

Urlinie Covered by Superposed Inner

Voices

Theme a Virtuosic/Étude Paganini †5th (^1-^3-^5) i -V - i - V ^4-^3-^2 Covered

1 a Virtuosic/Étude Paganini E 2 a Virtuosic/Étude Paganini E

3 a Virtuosic/Étude Paganini S ¥ Chromatic Tetrachord

4 a Lament Brahms N ¥ Phrygian Tetrachord

5 a Capriccio (Intermezzo) Brahms E

6 a Viennoise Brahms S Mostly uncovered ( ^4-^3)

7 a Étude (Bravura) Paganini S 8 a Étude Paganini N 9 a Fantasy Brahms N It § -V - It§ - III

10 a Alla zoppa; Hungarian Brahms N 11 A Music box Brahms I ¥ Major Tetrachord 12 A Music box Brahms E 13 a Salon Brahms S Uncovered ( ^4-^3-^2) 14a

Episode 14b⇒ Coda

a Virtuosic/Étude

(Lament) Style hongrois

Brahms E

¥ Phrygian Tetrachord, Plagal Progressions, LIP

(5–10)

Legend S = same interval († 5th) E = expansion (arp., register, duration) I = inverted arpeggiation (¥ 4th) N = no arpeggiation (static) Blank Box = no significant change or n/a