The music develops throughout the song. However, it is based on a four-bar ostinato figure which is heard in its original form five times during the course of the work.
Der Doppelganger makes its initial impact from its very slow (Sehr langsam) tempo and minor key. The stillness of the night is represented by the extremely low dynamic level, the very static rhythm of the accompaniment and by the F# which forms an inner pedal on the dominant of B minor throughout the first 40 bars.
Schubert creates a sense of obsession by beginning and e. Bar phrases on this pitch in the first verse. The opening bars suggest B minor, but the triads are incomplete and the bare 5ths in bars 1/4/5/8 suggest the empty loneliness of the poet, as does the halting and fragmented vocal line. As the poet fills in the detail of the scene, so the tolling piano chords fill out until the singer gradually starts to break free of the fateful F# in the second verse. But the piano retains the F# and the rising melodic line returns to F# in the climax of the song, marked to be played as loud as possible in bar 31 and underpinned by the chromatic dissonance in the next bar. The ostinato returns in bar 34, but this time the tenor claws his way up from F# to reach G, the highest note of both the vocal and piano parts. It is at this second climax (bar 41) that the pianist at last relinquishes the dominant note and it is here that the poet realises that he is seeing a horrifying reflection of himself.
He knows that he is doomed, for the person who meets their other self, according to legend is about to die. Now begins one of the most remarkable harmonic progressions that Schubert devised. While the voice revolves hopelessly around F#, the piano rises chromatically from B to D#, retaining an F# in every one of these bleak chords. The chromaticism leads to a modulation to D# minor, and this unusual and remote key is affirmed by alternate tonic and dominant.
Final version of opening progression, mm. 56–59 (click to enlarge) Example 6. Occurrences of ‘missing’ C natural (click to enlarge) 17 In the end, one might expect for the ambiguity of the introduction to finally be resolved by filling in all of the chords. While the progression does seem to return in the piano postlude, it is not ‘filled in’, but rather altered to reveal a different type of resolution. The first three chords are the same as the opening (except for the added pitch D completing the first chord), while the last is replaced by a lowered II chord, (see Example 5). There are two important aspects associated with this change of chord. First of all, it is in the position of what should have been the dominant.
Secondly, it contains all three of the missing pitches formed by the structural gaps. Thus, these pitches (C, G, and E) are also unequivocally bound to the fate of the dominant. 18 Tracing the disintegration of the dominant harmony, I propose two separate (although interconnected) paths, both originating in measure 4, but leading to separate destinations. The first path is governed by the force of the missing C natural. There are just four occurrences of this pitch, and each is directly connected with the dominant (see Example 6). Lawrence Kramer (, 221) describes the role of C as “an unresolvable long-term dissonance independent of tonal organization.” In my version, however, the appearance of the C is not “unresolvable,” but rather it is the inevitable resolution of the structural gap posed at the opening. The first two times it appears as part of two different augmented-sixth chords (measures 32 and 41), both of which function harmonically as dominant substitutes, and physically replace the dominant-seventh chord heard in the previous statements of this progression (measures 13 and 23).
Then, in measure 44, the C– F dyad parodies the open fifth of measure 4 by turning it into a diminished one. The last presentation is, of course, in measure 59, which is an entire triad built on C.
The poem and a rather literal word-by-word translation is found at the end of this essay. McClary (, 226) further suggests that this type of narrative might reflect Schubert’s “sense of estrangement from former good times and his immersion in the ‘miserable reality’ of his later life.” Following Steblin, I have appropriated Schubart’s description of D minor for its enharmonic equivalent.
Der Doppelganger Schubert Pdf
It is also possible to consider this chord as a dominant with 6–5 appoggiatura (i.e., the D behaves like a temporary displacement of the dominant’s 5th, C ). Linguatec voice reader studio british english v2008. Richard Kramer (, 220) reveals that the original music accompanying “Gestalt” in the autograph was virtually the same as that accompanying “Schmerzensgewalt” (measures 31–33).
Thus, the F remained and there was no high G. It seems evident from the preceding analysis that Schubert’s revision was crucial to the structural levels of the piece. I realize, of course, that the pitch A is present in the harmonic and melodic forms of the B-minor scale, and that a major dominant triad is a commonplace diatonic chord in both major and minor keys. Symbolically, I wish to consider A as a modal scale degree because it is not diatonic in natural minor. Its function as the leading tone (replacing the subtonic) is essentially borrowed from the major scale (one might say that its etymological origin is in the major key), placing it in the symbolic camp of B major. Werner Thomas (, 260) has proposed that the vocal part actually begins in a separate meter, starting with a ‘downbeat’ in 4 2 time on the second beat of measure 6.
Lawrence Kramer (, 220), however, suggests that the third chord of the progression is a III chord in B minor. One might also consider the abrupt change in vocal timbre resulting from the drop from G5 to F 4 in measures 42–43 as a more overt sonic illustration of this divide between outer and inner selves.
Furthermore, with the exception of measure 55, the pitch E never occurs as a chord tone in the vocal part. I personally hear the ending as a cadential six-four progression in E minor, which is suspended (by a fermata) before reaching its final tonic in some netherworld beyond the double bar. It is also interesting to note that the B– A –D– C motive from measures 1–4 can be found in measures 59–62 transposed to E minor: E– D –G– F.
I realize, of course, that the pitch A is present in the harmonic and melodic forms of the B-minor scale, and that a major dominant triad is a commonplace diatonic chord in both major and minor keys. Symbolically, I wish to consider A as a modal scale degree because it is not diatonic in natural minor. Its function as the leading tone (replacing the subtonic) is essentially borrowed from the major scale (one might say that its etymological origin is in the major key), placing it in the symbolic camp of B major. Copyright Statement Copyright © 1995 by the Society for Music Theory. All rights reserved.
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