Hello everyone,

This thread is for the analysis and discussion of the Schumann Chorale from the Album for the Young (Op. 68#4)

As we had some problems keeping the Beethoven discussion friendly and focused, I've decided to try a different approach. The Beethoven discussion was taking place on too many levels (rudiments, harmony, form, etc...) This work is not quite as complicated but I believe will provide us with a great deal to talk about.

I have posted a .pdf score of the piece at:

http://www.pianoped.com/choral.pdf

Enjoy!

First, some preliminaries:

The chorale is in the key of G Major. We know this because of two things, the key signature and the last measure.

While the first measure also begins in G Major, you will occasionally find works that don't begin so obviously. In fact, there are many openings of pieces, particularly in the Romantic era, that do not immediately establish a feeling of key. However, all common-practice tonal works end in an established key, so the last measure is always a good bet.

So...what is "key" and why do we care so much?

We care because composers working in the "Common Practice Era" (what most people call "classical" music, from Bach through Brahms, roughly 1650-1900) were all mindful of a set of principles that guided musical composition. While each of these composers had very different approaches in how they interpreted and applied those prinicples, the principles themselves remained constant.

One of those basic principals involves the idea of key. Think of a key as your home. It's where you want to rest, where you feel most at peace. That's not to say you can't leave home, and some composers (the sonata by Alban Berg comes to mind), spend more time away from home than at home, but at the end of the day, you always come home.

Because of this, we analyze Common Practice music with Roman numerals that relate the harmonies to "home." The Roman numerals denote the position of the root note in the scale of the home key. So in G Major, the seven triads that can be built using the notes of a G Major scale are:

I - G Major
ii - a minor
iii - b minor
IV - C Major
V - D Major
vi - e minor
viio - f# diminished

The next principle that guides Common Practice music is the idea that two of those chords are more important than all the others.

I - G Major - Home
V - D Major - "Work"

I call V "work" because that's where we spend most of our time when we're not home.

Okay...now to Schumann:

You'll notice that in our Schumann Chorale, all of the chords with fermatas on them are either I chords or V chords - with one exception, but we'll get to that later. What's more, if you look, you'll find that the vast majority of I chords are preceeded by V chords.

This brings us to two very important types of cadences, or points of rest within a piece. If a phrase ends on a V chord, then we call it a "half cadence" or "semi-cadence." This is because it sounds like it's left hanging in the air and sounds somewhat incomplete. When a phrase ends on a I chord, we call it an "authentic cadence" because it brings us back home.

Half cadences occur in mm. 4, 12, and 24.
Authentic cadences occur in mm. 8, 16, 20, 28, and 32.

Now...fire away with questions, continuations, or corrections!

In Britain we use the following:
If a phrase ends on a V chord it is called an imperfect cadence or half-close.
If a phrase ends on a I chord it is called a perfect cadence or full-close.


John

To illustrate Kreisler's point, I have highlighted all of the I (G Major) chords in red and all of the V (D Major) chords in blue:



See, almost every single chord in this 1-page chorale is either a I or a V chord!

Now why is that?

Every chord has a function in music. Think about English for a moment: every word in English has a function or purpose in the sentence. Some words are nouns, and other words are adjectives, and other words are verbs. The adjectives describe what the noun looks like, and the verbs describe what the noun is doing. In most cases, adjectives come directly before the noun (unless they come after a state of being verb, but let's not get fancy quite yet) and verbs come after the noun.

"The big fat dog[/b] jumped over the green snoring tired hungry cat[/b] who was sleeping and snoring and giggling."

The adjectives go before the nouns[/b] which are followed by verbs.


Now, music.

Chords also have functions in music. Of course, we don't have nouns and verbs and adjectives. We have what are called "tonic" chords, and we have "cadential dominants" and "expansion dominants".

"Tonic" chords are the "I" chords... they are the chords that have as their root (bottom note when the chord is written with a third between each note) the first note of the scale. In this Schumann chorale, all of these "tonic" chords are highlited in red. They for the most part begin phrases, and a lot of times they also end phrases (see the fermatas?). As Kreisler said, these are the most important chords -- they are the subject of the music.

"Expansion dominant" chords are certain "V" chords that "expand" the tonics. Here is what I mean. Suppose you have two tonic chords, and you want to connect them. What do you use? Expansion dominants. These are like the "and" in English: "dogs AND cats AND chickens AND meatballs." So we have in music: "I V6 I V43 I6 V65 I6 V42 I". Another chord that can be used as an expansion dominant is VII (even though it isn't a V chord, it has the same function). In this Schumann chorale, you can see that the expansion dominants, highlited in blue, go between the red tonic chords.

"Cadential dominant" chords are certain other "V" chords that go at the end of a phrase. If you see a V chord that has its root (in this case, D) at the very bottom (i.e. it is in 'root position') then it is a cadential dominant. If you see a V chord that has a different note at the very bottom, then it is not in root position, and it is an expansion dominant. Cadential dominants take their name from their function; they form cadences; they end phrases. Most of the time, you will see it followed by the tonic, e.g. V - I or V7 - I. This, as Kreisler said, is called an "authentic" or "full cadence." But if you don't end with the tonic and just leave the cadential dominant hanging, e.g. end on V or end on V7, then it is a "half" or "incomplete" cadence. See the importance of the tonic chords.


So these are the three most important chords: tonics, expansion dominants, and cadential dominants. To make it clearer, here is another copy of the score. This time, the tonics are still red; but this time, the expansion dominants are blue and the cadential dominants are green. Thick black lines mark the ends of phrases.



Notice that almost all of the blues are between reds; notice that reds are bunched together sometimes and blues are bunched together sometimes (kind of like grouping adjectives together: "the big fat smelly stinky hungry cat")); notice that almost all of the green "cadential dominants" come towards the ends of phrases (in the 2nd and 4th phrases there is a "trick" cadence towards the beginning of each phrase).

So, what about those other chords that aren't highlited? What about the II and IV and VI chords?

These are other kinds of connecting chords, kind of like the expansion dominants. If the expansions are like "and", then these other chords are kind of like "while" and "so" and "then" and so forth.

IV and VI can be so-called "neighbor" chords. The function is just like expansion dominants; they connect two tonic (I) chords (i.e. you start at home (I) then go to visit your neighbor (IV) and then come back home right away (I)).

IV and VI and II can also be "predominant" chords. These are chords that go before the cadential dominants; kind of like adverbs; verbs generally go at the end of a sentence, and the adverbs sort of set-up the verbs ("the chicken ate a rock and died" without the adverb vs. "the chicken ate a rock and reluctantly died" with the adverb).

Look for these in the Schumann -- they are the chords that are not highlited.

Here's a different take on the Schumann 68.4 Un choral based on degrees of the G major scale.

The 32 measures are clearly split into 4 measure sentences ... 8 x 4. The vital 'shape" of any composition is determined by the outermost
treble and bass notes ... the inner notes act as defining adjectives of the nouns.
The double 5 (treble and bass) at the end of a sentence is a dead giveaway of a HALF CLOSE ( V ) as is the double 1 signifying a FULL CLOSE ( I ) ... those with single 1 or 5 digits, whether treble or bass, as in the penultimate 3 sentences ... 3/1, 2/5 and 1/4 ... will need further qualification ... being neither fish nor fowl ( a variety of half or full close?).

Measures 1-4
1.2.3.2.1.7.6.5 (treble)
5.7.1.7.6.5.2.5 (bass)

Measures 5-8
1.2.3.4.3.2.1
6.5.1.6.5.5.1

Measures 9-12 (repeat of 1-4)

Measures 13-16 (repeat of 5-9)

Measures 17-20
3.4.5.4.3.2.3
1.2.3.2.1.4.1

Measures 21-24
5.5.6.5.4.3.2
1.3.4.3.2.1.5

Measures 25-28
3.5.4.3.1.2.3.1
1.3.4.1.4.2.1.4

Measures 29-32
3.5.4.3.2.2.1
1.3.2.1.4.5.1

This is really fascinating. I'm going to print out the music and hear what it sounds like after studying it. I hope I can predict how it sounds based on the colors.

Nancy

Here is a little flow chart that illustrates the functions described above.

The first set of arrows shows two different ways of "expanding" the tonic chord -- i.e. of repeating the same tonic chord but with something else in between. The initial tonic chords (I and I6) can be followed immediately by neighbor chords (IV and VI) and then go right back to the tonic again (red); and, the initial tonic chords (I and I6) can be followed immediately by expansion dominant chords (V6, V42, V43, V65, VII6) and then go right back to the tonic again (blue). Round and around they go, as many times as you'd like. You can play for a very long time and still have just one big long phrase by doing, for example, tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> *takes a deep breath* --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> cadential dominant --> final tonic.

The second set of arrows shows how to move from the initial tonic (any I or I6 chord in a phrase) to the final tonic (the last I chord at the end of a phrase). Follow tonic chord with cadential dominant and then from there to the final tonic (pink); or, follow tonic chord with predominant and then cadential dominant to final tonic (green). This last path is again one way of making it longer... tonic --> neighbor --> tonic........... --> predominant --> cadential dominant --> final tonic.

The third set of arrows shows a longer way of starting at a I or I6 tonic chord, sticking in a bunch of different chords, and then coming back to the I or I6 chord, all within one phrase. Tonic followed by predominant followed by expansion dominant and then back to the tonic. Example: tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> subdominant --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> subdominant --> expansion dominant --> tonic --> neighbor --> tonic --> subdominant --> cadential dominant --> final tonic.

I have done my homework on the Shumann choral and came up with the same functions as you Pianojerome, but without the nice colours (Will I have a B+ then...?)

I like your explanation of the Expansion and Cadencial dominant chord, makes sence to me.

I am not familiar with the V6, in my terms it would be a D3 (Dominant chord with the third as bass note or sixth-chord) but I guess there are different terms in different countries.

I find it interesting that Schumann has buildt chords on all notes in the scale except the III. He also uses the VII, the F#-chord, which is a diminished chord. I tried to count the numbers which he uses the different.

I (G major) : 26 times
II (Aminor, also used as Amajor): 4 times
III (H minor): 0 times
IV (C major): 6 times
V (D major): 16 times
VI (E minor): 2 times
VII (F#dim) : 4 times

just to see the Dominant is dominating.

One more comment, this choral is not originally written by Schumann.
It is one of the most common melodies in the Norwegian hymn-book, used for more than 10 different hymns.
Allthough the rhytm is a little different, the melody is excactly the same and is written by Louis Bourgeois in 1551. The voices are also a little different in the hymn book, (f ex V not V6 in the 1. two bars) and is from 1565 (Cloude Goudimel).

Ragnhild

This is the hymn by Bourgeois, in F major:

http://www.box.net/public/itrxjyes3y

Ragnhild

Schumann uses an elementary composition to form part of his Album for the youth ... largely to show how music is divided into sentences
with commas (half closes) and full-stops (full close) as exemplified in the first 8 measures.

The key of G major is introduced with a simple treble up-and-down run 1.2.3.2.1.7.6.5 (comma), followed by 1.2.3.4.3.2.1 (full-stop).

Sad to say ... all the bleat about ‘cadential and expansion dominants' is just so much spurious poppycock ... the inflated language of
dithering musicologists ... with no practical use .

The musical sentence merely moves in scalar steps up and down.

Hi Ragnhild,
Enjoyed playing your stately hymn.
Transcribed your “Jesus, dine dype vunder” hymn a whole tone higher to match the G major key of Schumann 64.4 Un choral ... the treble outline
in the first 8 measures is identical but, as you said ... with a different rhythm.

Might I point out that ... much as one might be inclined to feel that Schumann had plundered an old Norwegian Bourgeois hymn ... there’s more to composition than a melody ... the clothing of the melody distinguishes the men from the boys ... without wishing to be guilty of prejudice ... Schumann shows a masterful balance in pitting the note pattern shapes in each hand against each other ... which is the genius factor.

Too often in the writing of hymns there is an inclination to merely harmonize a melody ... the note pattern shaping of distinctive hand roles as presented by Schumann offers the extra dimension of counterpoint to a very prosaic keyboard study.

The hymn of Lois Bourgeous is not at all Norwegian (even if this version was with a Norwegian lyric).

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/o/u/bourgeois_l.htm

I think the chorals of the 16th century was shared by many European countries, we probably adopted them later here in the cold north I am quite sure Schumann also knew this melody.

This choral is written for the church-organ and all the way the bass (the pedal) plays the root of the chord (no 6 or 4-6 chords).
The F# dim chord is not used in the choral of 1565 , but the VI is used more as a "transition" chord.

I played both for my daughter and she prefered the Schumann choral, it sounds lighter, and a little more "modern".

Ragnhild

Questions:

Question 1:
So do you mean that if a composition started in G major, the composer does not use except the harmonies used above?


Question2:
What are the numbers next to the Roman numerals that PJ wrote?

Question3:
It appears that the choral is split into sentences as you said, and when i look at it i look at the uppermost notes as the melody, while the rest of the note is sort of the accompanying chord that defines the harmony, is this correct? can i look at this composition with this view?

Question4:
If my assumption in the above question is right, then how, from a composer's perspective, did he write the accompanying chords? Is there certain rules? Is it the expanding and neighbouring chords that PJ is trying to explain here?

Question5:
Does he depart from Gmajor here? How do you know that the other chords are just "away from home" as Kreisler said? How do you know that he has not for example "changed his address" in the middle of the piece? And if this happened how will this affect his Roman numeral notation?

Sorry for the long questions, I know i will make you guys tired.

Okay...question #1:

Yes and no. The chords I listed are those that are diatonic to G Major. In other words, those are the harmonies that are "in the key."

Composers can, however, use harmonies outside the key if they momentarily or temporarily change key.

This happens in measure 4 with the A major chord. While we might be tempted to write it as a II chord, it's actually not, because it doesn't fit in the key. It does, however, fit into the key of D, creating a momentary V - I cadence in the key of D. Since D is V in G Major, we call that A Major chord "V/V" which means "V of V." Chords which function as dominants to diatonic harmonies are called secondary or applied dominants. You can have V/vi, V/iv, V/V, etc...

Applied dominants fall into this broader category of what we call "chromatic" harmony. In classical analysis, we typically divide the world up into diatonic and chromatic harmonies. Diatonic harmonies are the roman numerals I listed above. Chromatic harmonies include applied dominants, augmented sixth chords, "borrowed" chords, and Neapolitan chords. The Schumann example here only makes use of applied dominants, and then only the V/V, which is found in mm. 3, 4, 11, and 12. (When the V/V chord has a 7th, we simply write "V7/V".)

In a college curriculum, the first two semesters are usually dedicated to diatonic harmony, while the third and fourth semesters are dedicated to chromatic harmony and 20th century techniques.

I'll tackle question #2 later today.

Three questions:

1. The VII chord (diminished) and the V 7 both nicely resolve to the tonic. Is there a rule in standard diatonic harmony for when one goes from VII to I instead of V 7 to I? The V 7 to I certainly resolves the cadence with finality!

2. When I wrote up the chord progression I put the second notes in measure 17 and 18 as VII chords (just like PJ did). But how do we know that they are not simply V 7 chords. The telltale D versus E isn't there.

3. I seem to remember that a variant of the II chord is a standard modulation tool. Schumann doesn't seem to be doing that here.

Question:

With my very limited knowledge of choral voicing I have learned that (with some specific exceptions) the dominant V always shall be followed by the tonic I.

If I look at measure 2 - 5 in the Schumann Choral I have I-V-II-V-II-V-VI-V which is 3 "illegal" movements.

But if I look at it as he changes the key to D major at the the second note in measure 2 I see:
I-V (Gmajor)---------- V (Gmajor)-I-IV-I-V-I
--I (Dmajor)-V-I-V-I-II-I (Dmajor)----

Then there is no strange moving like V-II or V-VI.
What is the correct way of analyzing this ?

Ragnhild

The simple answer is: they're not II chords. Pianojerome's analysis is incorrect - most of the chords he's labeled as II should be labeled as applied dominants: V/V.

To be fair, they do use the II label in Europe and in some older textbooks, but they don't teach V-II as being illegal.

Okay...question #2, the numbers:

The numbers are figured bass notation for chord inversions.

If we take a C triad, CEG, the E is a 3rd above the C and the G is a 5th above. So the figured bass is 53. If we're in first inversion, EGC, then the G is a 3rd above the bottom note and the C is a 6th above, so the figured bass is 63. For second inversion, GCE, the figured bass is 64.

So, for simple triads:
53 = root position
63 = first inversion
64 = second inversion

But we often simplify the notation and use the following shorthand:

(nothing) = root position
6 = first inversion
64 = second inversion

Now...seventh chords are done similarly. A C7 chord (CEGBb) has the intervals 753. (C to E is a 3rd, C to G is a 5th, and C to Bb is a 7th.) When we move this to first inversion (EGBbC), the intervals above the bottom note are 6, 5, and 3.

So for seventh chords:

root position = 753
first inversion = 653
second inversion = 643
third inversion = 642

These are also often simplified as:

root position = 7
first inversion = 65
second inversion = 43
third inversion = 42 (or just "2" in some books)

These figured bass indications are the numbers used to indicate chord inversions in roman numeral analysis. They were also used by baroque and classical composers to indicate chord changes over which a performer would improvise or "realize" the part. What I've given you here is the most basic version, but figured bass is a very rich and interesting system that constitutes the baroque and classical version of a lead sheet. The difference being that a jazz lead sheet consists of a melody line and chord symbols while a baroque "lead sheet" would use a bass line and figures. (The bass line is necessary since the figures denote intervals above the bass.)

Just a question about notation :

Is it right to mame the chords of the scale I, II, II, IV, V, VI, VII or is it correct to write the small numbers for minor chords like:

I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii(dim)..... ?

(Then II would be the right name for a major second chord - even if V/V is the function ...?)

I find this quite difficult

BTW, I saw the "chord maps" in the ABF forum :
http://www.pianoworld.com/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/32/3297.html

Can this be used for analyzing or are the theory for song-writing different from the one for analyzing ?

Ragnhild

In the United States, we use I, ii, iii, IV, V, etc...

In Europe, they use all upper case - I, II, III, IV, etc...

Also, the V/V notation is relatively new. Prior to about 1960, they just used II.

I guess it's starting to mix a little. My teacher here in the United States uses all upper-case, even for the minors -- his justification is that it gets tedious to always write the little dots on lower case i's, and we should simply know which chords are going to be major and which will be minor.

What textbook does he use? I didn't know there were any upper case texts in use in the US.

I did my homework too!

But there are some chords which i did not recognize and i did not write the inversions like PJ .. maybe this will be the next step!

Here is my HW .. there are question marks i wrote on the chords i did not recognize



btw i wrote V7 referring to dominant seventh chords .. is this correct?

The first two question mark chords are E minor: E G B. (VI)

The second one is A7: A C E G (II7)


On a related note...

Not every note in the chord will be printed. Consider the chord G B D. G is the 'root'. B is the 'third' (3rd above root). D is the 'fifth' (5th above root -- notice that when referrng to intervals, we use numerals (1-7) but when referring to particular parts of the chord we use words (third, fifth, seventh, etc)).

You will rarely see a chord that is missing the root -- because the root is the foundation which identifies the chord.

You will rarely see a chrod that is missing the third -- because that is what determines if it is major or minor.

You will rarely find a 7th chord that is missing the seventh -- because then it is not a 7th chord.


You will very often find a chord that is missing the fifth -- the fifth is just there for support, but it can be easily left out.

Look for example at the very last chord in this piece. It is a G Major chord: G B D. But where is the D? It's okay; he left out the D, but put three of the voices on the most important root (G) and one voice on the also important third (B). The root (G) tells us it is a G-something chord, and the B tells us it is a G major chord; the D, if it were there, would just add extra support.

Yep...the first two are vi chords.

The chord in m. 19 is a ii chord. It would be written ii65 because of the inversion.

The inversions are important because they tell you what notes are going to be in the bass line.

Suppose you have the following chords in root position (in the key of G Major):

I - V - VII - IV - V - I - V - I

The notes in the bass line go: G - D - F - C - D - G - D - G.

But suppose you have some of them in inversion:

I - V42 - VII6 - IV - V6 - I - V43 - I

Then the bass line goes: G - C - A - C - F - G - A - G

See, the bass lines are different.

Now, what if you have them in different inversions:

I6 - V7 - VII6 - IV6 - V43 - I6 - V65 - I

Now the bass line goes: B - D - A - E - A - B - F - G

See, the bass line is again very different.

It is pointed out that the RH shapes created by Schumann in his 68.4 Un choral are totally independent of the LH .

The RH part can be played on it’s own ... it isn’t founded on the LH outline ... the triad inter-dependence between the hand roles should have no place in the analysis. Ragnhild’s hymn is an example of a similar treble theme with a different LH outline.

The analysis has overlooked the fact that keyboard music is played by two independent hands ... Schumann’s genius keeps the duet
apart ... the lower harmonizing a contrapuntal balancing ‘fullness’ with the other ... as the RH chord intervals grow bigger the LH decreases ... and vice-versa.

Please chaps ... don’t confuse the eager young hopefuls with unproductive mumbo-jumbo ... talk about the unique structure of the music.