Performing Expressive Closure in Structurally Open Contexts: Chopin’s Prelude in A minor and the Last Two Dances of Schumann’sDavidsbündlertänze

Abstract

Schenkerian analysis gives priority to structural harmonic and voice-leading closure in tonal works, but composers have found other ways to simulate (and dissimulate) structural closure for dramatically expressive purposes. After a brief look at an example by Beethoven (the coda to the first movement of op. 2, no. 1), I focus on interpreting closure in two Romantic piano pieces. In his Prelude in A minor, op. 28, no. 2, Chopin plays with three different closural gambits: dissolution to silence, a false Picardy third close on the dominant, and a final V7–i cadence in A minor. The latter two options are also marked by shifts in level of discourse, and may suggest two commentaries (beatific consolation vs. tragic desolation) on the funereal trajectory of the work. In the penultimate dance of hisDavidsbündlertänzeop. 6, Schumann achieves both thematic and tonal closure, complete with the cyclic return of waltz no. 2 and a passionately tragic coda suggestive of Florestan. But he expressively undercuts that strong closure to allow Eusebius the last word. The final waltz (no. 18) overflows not only its own formal boundaries, but also the formal closure of the set implied by no. 17, reversing the tragic coda to achieve a transcendently positive epiphany. I propose and illustrate performance options that can help project the expressive closural dramas in these two works by Chopin and Schumann.

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