Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-15T18:59:53.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Formal Fusion and Its Effect on Voice-Leading Structure: The First Movement of Beethoven's Opus 132 Revisited

from Part Three - Structure and Design II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Boyd Pomeroy
Affiliation:
associate professor of music theory at the University of Arizona, Tucson
David Beach
Affiliation:
Professor emeritus and former dean of the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto
Yosef Goldenberg
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he also serves as head librarian
Get access

Summary

The first movement of Beethoven's A-minor string quartet is surely a strong contender for the title of his most unconventional sonata-based movement. Much critical and analytical ink has been spilled on its formal unorthodoxy and heightened expressive character (topical and subjective). These qualities have in turn prompted larger questions into the extent to which this music, with its pronounced tendency to surface discontinuity, still exemplifies the language of Classicism, together with the implications of all of this for traditional notions of unity and coherence. This study will take another look at the movement, exploring its idiosyncratic formal process from the combined perspectives of Schenkerian paradigms for sonata form and the dialogic approach of Sonata Theory, following Hepokoski and Darcy.

Formal Fusion

Formal fusion” refers to the simultaneous playing out, within one formal space, of formal functions (thematic and tonal) typically associated with consecutive formal spaces. The spirit of the technique is very much in tune with a nineteenth-century conception of sonata form, a post-Classical aesthetic that stressed formal freedom and continuous growth. It derives its effect from realizations of the thematic rotational principle in such a way as to suggest real form-functional bivalence.

The first movement of opus 132 exhibits this phenomenon at multiple levels: first, at that of the large-scale sonata-formal divisions, arising from triple rotation of the thematic materials—hence fusion of expositional and developmental functions; of developmental and recapitulatory functions; and of recapitulatory and coda functions. Second, formal fusion also operates at the lower level of framing function and thematic unit.

Type
Chapter
Information
Bach to Brahms
Essays on Musical Design and Structure
, pp. 204 - 224
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×