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Cadence as Gesture in the Writings and Music of Arnold Schoenberg

Cadence as Gesture in the Writings and Music of Arnold Schoenberg This article focuses on the writings and music of Arnold Schoenberg to establish concrete techniques for form‐functional analysis, particularly cadential function. In both Fundamentals of Musical Composition and ‘Problems of Tonality’, Schoenberg discusses how form can be communicated to an audience in music with and without tonal functions. I use the already established field of energetics and Robert Hatten's theory of gesture (2004) to describe the musical effect of a number of compositional techniques employed in the service of cadence. This leads me to define rhetorical and syntactical markers for cadential function in Schoenberg's music. I demonstrate this with tonal excerpts from Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, where harmonic function supports and coincides with these rhetorical and syntactical functions. This same technique is then examined in the Musette and Minuet from Schoenberg's Suite for Piano, Op. 25, where the twelve‐note structure is less useful for hearing formal boundaries. Although this study focuses on Schoenberg's music, it also suggests that there is more in common between what might be termed ‘Romantic’ formal functions and early non‐tonal formal functions. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Music Analysis Wiley

Cadence as Gesture in the Writings and Music of Arnold Schoenberg

Eason, Andrew
Music Analysis , Volume 41 (2) – Jul 1, 2022
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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Music Analysis © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
ISSN
0262-5245
eISSN
1468-2249
DOI
10.1111/musa.12198
Publisher site
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Abstract

This article focuses on the writings and music of Arnold Schoenberg to establish concrete techniques for form‐functional analysis, particularly cadential function. In both Fundamentals of Musical Composition and ‘Problems of Tonality’, Schoenberg discusses how form can be communicated to an audience in music with and without tonal functions. I use the already established field of energetics and Robert Hatten's theory of gesture (2004) to describe the musical effect of a number of compositional techniques employed in the service of cadence. This leads me to define rhetorical and syntactical markers for cadential function in Schoenberg's music. I demonstrate this with tonal excerpts from Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4, where harmonic function supports and coincides with these rhetorical and syntactical functions. This same technique is then examined in the Musette and Minuet from Schoenberg's Suite for Piano, Op. 25, where the twelve‐note structure is less useful for hearing formal boundaries. Although this study focuses on Schoenberg's music, it also suggests that there is more in common between what might be termed ‘Romantic’ formal functions and early non‐tonal formal functions.

Journal

Music Analysis – Wiley

Published: Jul 1, 2022

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