In the Process of Becoming

With their insistence that form is a dialectical process in the music of Beethoven, Theodor Adorno and Carl Dahlhaus emerge as the guardians of a long-standing critical tradition in which Hegelian concepts have been brought to bear on the question of musical form. Janet Schmalfeldt's ground-breaking account of the development of this Beethoven-Hegelian tradition restores to the term "form" some of its philosophical associations in the early nineteenth century, when profound cultural changes were yielding new relationships between composers and their listeners, and when music itself-in particular, instrumental music-became a topic for renewed philosophical investigation. Precedents for Adorno's and Dahlhaus's concept of form as process arise in the Athenäum Fragments of Friedrich Schlegel and in the Encyclopaedia Logic of Hegel. The metaphor common to all these sources is the notion of becoming; it is the idea of form coming into being that this study explores in respect to music by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Schumann.
A critical assessment of Dahlhaus's preoccupation with the opening of Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata serves as the author's starting point for the translation of philosophical ideas into music-analytical terms-ones that encourage listening "both forward and backward," as Adorno has recommended. Thanks to the ever-growing familiarity of late eighteenth-century audiences with formal conventions, composers could increasingly trust that performers and listeners would be responsive to striking formal transformations. The author's analytic method strives to capture the dynamic, quasi-narrative nature of such transformations, rather than only their end results. This experiential approach to the perception of form invites listeners and especially performers to participate in the interpretation of processes by which, for example, a brooding introduction-like opening must inevitably become the essential main theme in Schubert's Sonata, Op. 42, or in which tremendous formal expansions in movements by Mendelssohn offer a dazzling opportunity for multiple retrospective reinterpretations. Above all, In the Process of Becoming proposes new ways of hearing beloved works of the romantic generation as representative of their striving for novel, intensely self-reflective modes of communication.

Janet Schmalfeldt is Associate Professor of Music Theory at Tufts University. She has taught at McGill University and at Yale, where she was awarded the Clauss Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities in 1993. She is the author of Berg's "Wozzeck": Harmonic Language and Dramatic Design and of numerous articles. In 1997-99, she served as President of the Society for Music Theory. Her performances in the role of pianist have included solo, concerto, and chamber music.

- Preface
- 1.: Introduction: The Idea of Musical Form as Process
- 2.: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the "Tempest" Sonata
- - Formation of the Tradition
- - Dahlhaus and the "Tempest" Sonata
- - Post-Dahlhausian Critiques
- - The question of a secondary theme
- - Introduction or main theme
- - ST2 and the final cadence of the exposition
- 3.: The Processual Legacy of the Late Eighteenth Century
- - Haydn-String Quartet in C Major, Op. 33, No. 3 (Hob. III:39), first movement
- - Haydn-Piano Trio in C Major (Hob. XV:27), finale
- - Clementi-Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 13, No. 6, first movement
- - Mozart-Le nozze di Figaro, Act I, No. 7, Trio in B-flat
- 4.: Beethoven's "Bridgetower" Sonata, Op. 47
- 5.: On Performance, Analysis, and Schubert
- - Schubert-Piano Sonata in A Minor, Op. 42, D. 845
- 6.: Music that Turns Inward: New Roles for Interior Movements and Secondary Themes
- - Schubert-Allegro in A Minor for Four Hands, "LebensstÃ-rme," D. 947
- - Schubert-Piano Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 100, D. 929
- 7.: Mendelssohn the "Mozartean"
- - String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13: opening of the finale
- - The Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 49, first movement: opening of the exposition
- - The Octet, Op. 20
- - The finale
- - The opening of the first movement
- - More on Mendelssohn's codas: Overture to Midsummer Night's Dream and the Scherzo of the D-minor Piano Trio
- 8.: sed non eodem modo: Chopin's Ascending-Thirds Progression and his Cello Sonata, Op. 65
- - Overview with respect to Chopin's genres
- - First movement of the Cello Sonata: Allegro moderato
- -Third movement of the Cello Sonata: Largo
- 9.: Coming Home
- - Robert Schumann-"Mondnacht," from Liederkreis, Op. 39
- - Robert Schumann-"Widmung," from Myrthen, Op. 25
- - Clara Schumann-"Die stille Lotosblume," Op. 13, No. 6
- - Robert Schumann-Arabeske, Op. 18
- - Robert Schumann-Fantasie, Op. 17
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index