JAVS Spring 2019

sonority containing both a major third (F-sharp) and a minor third (F-natural), as well as a minor seventh (C-natural). 12 Beginning as a pickup to m. 2, a low bass oscillation between A and D establishes D as the pitch center of this movement. Despite the instability of the sonority itself, its unfaltering repetition establishes a stable foundation for the entrance of the viola’s song-like melody. From the viola’s perspective, this D tonic is completely absent. Her eight-bar melody seems to contain two different pitch centers: the first phrase (mm. 3–6) projects a tonic of A, whereas the second (mm. 7–10) centers around A-flat due to the addition of the two extra flats. Despite this harmonic complexity, it is worth emphasizing the inherent simplicity of this melody. Within each pitch center, the melody primarily uses diatonic scale degrees 1, 2, and 3, and in both cases, leaps to higher pitches only occur at the start of the third bar, giving each phrase a traditional melodic arch shape. One could also understand this dichotomy between simplicity and complexity to occur throughout time: the antecedent phrase presents a simple melodic shape with repeating accompaniment, while the consequent phrase takes the same idea but makes it more complex by adding more dissonance. Together, these two phrases reference another type of classical phrase structure: a parallel period. In such a structure, the first phrase, the antecedent, typically ends with a slightly weaker cadence, while the subsequent phrase, the consequent, ends stronger. 13 A more conventional example of a parallel period occurs in the second movement of Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata (ex. 7). In this example the first phrase ends on the dominant with a half cadence, while the second ends on the tonic with a perfect authentic cadence. In Rochberg’s Sonata, the piano’s static accompaniment does

not allow it to assist harmonically in the creation of either cadence. The viola’s melody, however, implies a return to the tonic at the end of each phrase; a performer might choose to imply a stronger cadence in m. 10 than in m. 6. 14 The harmonic tension between the viola and piano is immediately resolved upon arrival in m. 11 (ex. 6). Both instruments start on G, the subdominant (assuming a global tonic of D), and they seem to work together in the first unified gesture of the movement. The bass of the next two measures emphasizes A-flat (indicated as flat-V in fig. 2), and the subsequent section begins with a pitch center of A, the dominant (m. 15). This passage constitutes the A section of the second movement, which has an overall formal structure: AAB/ AAB/Coda (fig. 2). As in the first movement, this movement is composed from only a small amount of thematic material. There are essentially 20 bars of melodic ideas: 12 measures in the A section and 8 in the B section. The A material initially appears with a pitch center of D and moves through a quasi-functional progression (I–IV–flat-V–V), with the final V chord in D corresponding to the start of the next A section. This dominant chord acts as a sort of pivot that becomes the new tonic—the pitch center has essentially just moved up a fifth—and, as the A material repeats, so does the progression. After a contrasting B section, the next A section begins with a pitch center of G. This is clever since, once the section repeats a fifth higher, it has arrived back at the global tonic D. A similar fifth relationship occurs between the key areas of the two B sections. The coda begins off tonic, but eventually arrives to conclude in D. Overall Form

Example 7: Schubert, Sonata for Arpeggione (Viola) and Piano in A minor, D. 821, II, mm. 4–11

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

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