Le 29 juin 2017
de 9h30 à 10h00
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3206
Séance - Schenkerian, Riemannian, and Neo-Riemannian Theories
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Ellen Bakulina
This paper explores elements of linear analysis in the 1937 monograph (untranslated into English) on Chopin’s Fantasy, op. 49 by the Soviet musicologist Leo Mazel. My two goal are (1) to draw parallels between Mazel’s and Schenker’s work, and (2) to build an original Schenkerian reading of Chopin’s Fantasy based on both Mazel’s and Carl Schachter’s analyses of the piece. By building an original reading of the piece enriched by Mazel’s monograph, I show that elements of linear-analytical thinking can be implicit in analysis ostensibly unrelated to Schenker’s work or to graphic techniques.
Several elements in Mazel’s book have direct relevance to Schenkerian theory. First, Mazel explains mm. 1–2 as projecting a perfect fourth on two levels, one as a filled-in version of the other—an expression somewhat resembling the idea of a linear progression. Second, Mazel’s harmonic reductions essentially represent a middleground-level imaginary continuo (William Rothstein’s term). Finally, the most remarkable section is Mazel’s discussion of the Lento passage, which he calls the “central episode”, mm. 199–235. He explains this passage as a sort of extension (or prolongation) of the G-flat major harmony, which then becomes an augmented-6th chord and moves to an F-major chord. Mazel’s analysis essentially amounts to a prolongational idea due to a reference to a structurally retained tone G flat. I finish by offering a strictly Schenkerian reading of the Fantasy that incorporates Mazel’s semitonal-motion idea at multiple structural levels.
