Introduction
It is difficult to describe precisely the events depicted in Das Buch der hĂ€ngenden GĂ€rten, Arnold Schoenbergâs 1908â9 song cycle, which sets poems by Stefan George. Part of this difficulty concerns the ambiguous temporal perspective: is the speaker describing events or remembering them? Another layer of ambiguity arises from the descriptions of the events themselves: the use of metaphor obscures any definitive meaning. Most commentators agree that these 15 poems recount the growth and decay of a passionate affair between the speaker and an unnamed person. The tone and imagery prompt descriptions that highlight the textâs exotic and/or archaic setting. We might even say that the âtimelessnessâ of the cycleâs temporal ambiguity contributes to the sense of the mythical and melancholy that persists throughout the work.2
The musical material in Schoenbergâs setting of these texts further complicates this expressive ambiguity, compounding the interpretive challenges facing analysts of this work. These challenges have prompted diverse approaches to understanding meaning in the song cycle. For example, Allen Forteâs 1992 study explores the use of set-classes throughout the cycle and the role that ciphers for the names Arnold Schoenberg, Mathilde Schoenberg, and Richard Gerstl may have played across the cycle. David Lewinâs approach (1973) focuses on pitch inversions and near-inversions to study the emotional stance of the songâs narrator in song 7, âAngst und Hoffen.â And Anne Marie de Zeeuw (1993) argues that the 3:4 rhythmic ratio that emerges at the opening of the eleventh song not only influenced Schoenbergâs decisions about rhythm, form, melody, and harmony throughout the song, but also suggests a metaphor between two oppositions: men and women, and sex and marriage.
One avenue that has remained relatively unexplored in the analysis of these songs is the role of musical topicsâconventional signs that convey cultural and emotional content. In this chapter, I aim to investigate how two enduring topics, the tempesta and the ombraâmusical styles originating in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century operaâmay be identified and understood in Das Buch der hĂ€ngenden GĂ€rten. As I demonstrate, Schoenberg maintains many of the traditional elements of the tempesta and the ombra while also including consistent atonal elements. Specifically, I will argue that (014) trichords, or three-note units that consist of a semitone within a major third, become signifiers of the ombra in Schoenbergâs atonal music. I will first provide some background about topic theory in general and about the ombra and tempesta in particular, before turning to examples from Das Buch der hĂ€ngenden GĂ€rten.
Topical analysis
Danuta Mirka has recently defined topics as âmusical styles and genres taken out of their proper context and used in another oneâ (2014, 2). Topics signify through the associations that they accrue from these original contexts. The musical elements that are visible in the score and audible in performance (including parameters such as rhythm, harmony, melody, and dynamics) refer to current or historical types and styles of music, from which they draw their associations; these references point to larger cultural ideas, which we, as listeners, often translate into emotions.3
For example, the tempesta is marked by rapid and sometimes repetitive melodic gestures, the minor mode, a fast tempo, and a high register, among other features.4 These signs were used by composers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century operas to depict storms, both natural and supernatural. In the context of those operas and in the context of how we hear the tempesta today, we might also understand these musical signs as indicative of anxiety, distress, or turmoilâemotional states evoked by storms and referenced in the historical sources of the topic. Since 1980, scholars such as Leonard Ratner, Wye J. Allanbrook, Robert Hatten, and Raymond Monelle have demonstrated the explanatory power of topical analysis in tonal music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries5; in recent years, scholars have explored how this mode of analysis can be applied fruitfully to the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.6
Two recent approaches to the analysis of topics in music after 1900 influence my analysis here. Frymoyer (2017) suggests a tripartite hierarchical division of the features of a topic by considering whether they are essential, frequent, or idiomatic, a methodology that proves useful in determining whether topics are strongly or less strongly present. The hierarchical model seems most effective for topics defined by rhythm and meter, such as the waltz and the march, which constitute Frymoyerâs primary case studies; her analysis does not consider the pitch aspect of Schoenbergâs waltzes. Johnson (2017) differs by suggesting that instances of topics may demonstrate a familial relation with each other; instead of possessing one feature that is true of every occurrence of a topic, individual examples of topics may instead possess some subset of features that may be shared by the broader topical category. Influenced by these perspectives, the remainder of this chapter will consider both topical inclusion and issues of pitch in Schoenbergâs use of the tempesta and ombra in Das Buch der hĂ€ngenden GĂ€rten in an effort to understand how hearing these topics might influence our interpretation, as potential performers and listeners, of the cycle as a whole.
I have chosen the topics of tempesta and ombra for three reasons. First, these topics share many of the same figurae, or building blocks; musical elements such as âchromatic bass motionâ or âtremolo effectsâ are features of both of these topics.7 The tempesta and the ombra primarily differ in terms of tempo and tessitura. Second, both of these topics feature pitch-class structures and relationships, such as fully diminished sevenths, the minor mode, and dissonant leaps, which are marked elements in triadic tonal music; as such, this raises the question of markedness in a non-tonal context. And third, commentary around Das Buch der hĂ€ngenden GĂ€rten has often employed language that suggests an understanding of the expressive content of the topics present and of these topics specifically.8 Investigating the presence of the ombra and tempesta throughout this cycle addresses both structural and expressive concerns in this enigmatic piece.
Defining the Ombra and Tempesta
Clive McClellandâs chapter on the ombra and tempesta in The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory (2014) will serve as my primary touchstone for the definition of these topics. McClelland contrasts these two topics, drawing on previous writings on the subject and original analyses of examples from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century opera to create Table 1.1.9 This table contrasts the ombra and the tempesta, indicating potential features of each topic in areas such as rhythm, dynamics, melody, harmony, and texture. His analysis parallels Frymoyerâs distinction among essential, frequent, and idiomatic features by informally identifying common and less common signifiers; note his use of âespeciallyâ and âoftenâ in the lists of characteristic features.
TABLE 1.1 McClellandâs Figure 10.1: âA comparison of ombra and tempesta characteristicsâ (2014, 282) | Ombra | Tempesta |
General | High style, sombre, sustained | Agitated, declamatory, stormy |
Tempo | Slow or moderate | Fast |
Tonality | Flat keys (especially minor keys); occasionally... |