JAVS Spring 2019

slightly alters the figure into an ascending scalar pattern, allowing her to begin to climb. This time there is no hemiola to halt her ascent; instead, both instruments land on a dissonant, fortissimo chord reminiscent of a half cadence (m. 18). The allargando and espressivo directions and long durational value suggest that this arrival could be held for longer than notated; perhaps the viola might even insert a slight break before her dolcissimo entrance. 8 Beneath this building intensity (mm. 14–18), the piano continues an almost verbatim statement of the primary theme’s melody transposed up a fifth to C—but as the viola’s line gains momentum, she also draws the listener’s attention. By the middle of this section, it is no longer clear which part is melody and which is accompaniment; the two textural roles have been conflated. After the climactic arrival (m. 18), energy dissipates as the viola and piano trade a descending fragment, borrowed from the primary theme and repurposed in an imitative texture. The piano introduces a hemiola in the bass line (mm. 23– 24), perhaps both as a reference to the end of the primary theme and as a signal for the close of the section. The secondary theme (mm. 26–51) establishes new roles for each instrument (ex. 3). The piano begins alone, presenting an accented, angular line. The rhythmic profile and single-voice texture of this new theme allude to characteristics of a fugue, a genre that epitomizes equality between voices. After eight measures of piano alone, the viola enters a fifth higher, acting as the answer to the piano’s fugal subject. Within the sonata-form context of this movement, this entrance pushes the pitch center a fifth too far: we expect the secondary theme to appear in the dominant (C) during the exposition and be transposed down a fifth to the tonic (F) during the recapitulation. When the fugue subject returns to the piano in m. 43— now presented in a stretto-like texture between the two hands—the pitch center has returned to C. This play of pitch center within the secondary theme continues in the recapitulation. Instead of beginning a fifth lower than in the exposition, the secondary theme begins two fifths lower (on B-flat instead of F; m. 188). This adjustment means that only the viola’s “fugal answer” (beginning in m. 195) has the pitch center one would expect for the secondary theme in the recapitulation (the global tonic, F); the rest of the theme centers around B-flat (see fig. 1).

Back in the exposition, the relationship between instruments changes yet again during the exposition’s closing section (mm. 52–68). The viola-melody/piano accompaniment texture of the opening returns with a theme characterized by metric instability. This closing theme seems to have grown out of the sixteenth-note pickup gesture in the secondary theme area (for example, see m. 29). The pattern of the piano’s accompaniment implies metrical accents every two beats, creating a hemiola against the notated 3/4 meter. 9 The viola’s melody is also metrically unstable: her entrance and accents on beat 3 sound like downbeats (m. 52 and m. 53); the notated meter only returns with the early accent and eighth notes in mm. 54–55. The melodic line is passed to the piano’s right hand for four measures, and then the two instruments share an imitative version of the theme that is stretched slightly, until the start of the development (m. 68). development with a contrapuntal combination of primary and secondary theme material with a pitch center on D. Each theme has been texturally altered from its original presentation: the piano’s statement of the primary theme lacks the inner voices and bass line that appeared in the original version, and the viola presents a pizzicato version of the secondary theme moved to a higher register. Upon arrival in m. 72, the instruments trade roles: the piano suddenly switches to the secondary theme’s fugue subject, and the viola layers a statement of the primary theme on top; here, the theme is transformed to include pizzicato chords on the downbeats that previously contained rests. Once the viola has presented nearly an entire statement of the primary theme, the development continues to cycle through the material from the exposition. The transition material returns in m. 81 with a pitch center of E-flat. This time the viola rests instead of holding whole notes and then introduces a rising motive of three eighth notes in m. 85. Meanwhile, the piano continues with transition material until m. 89, finally breaking from the primary theme melody in order to contribute punctuating chords as a response to the viola’s ascending sixteenth notes. The tension builds, and then dissipates with a cadenza-like interjection from the viola (mm. 98–100). Development and Recapitulation As one would expect in a sonata-form movement, the development recycles the thematic materials introduced in the exposition. 10 Rochberg begins the turbulent

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2019