Score Reading: Misprints

A passage from the fugue of Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variation in B minor, op. 18 is quoted above. I believe it contains a rather serious misprint in the highlighted measure.

Misprints in musical scores can occur for a number of reasons: a slip of the copyist’s pen from autograph to 1st edition or to any subsequent edition, a copyist’s misinterpretation of the composer’s notation, misreading a clef, an editor’s decision, or in rare cases, a mistake on the part of the composer.

When the composer’s autograph is not available, how are we to know which edition to use? Can we trust so-called ‘urtext’ editions implicitly? Fortunately, two or more editions are available for most repertoire, although many performances are indeed based on a single source. It is also fortunate that misprints are extremely rare. What is unfortunate is that they can easily go undetected.

The alleged misprint in the Franck excerpt occurs in the soprano voice - the eighth note D should be a major 6th higher - B on the 3rd line. The evidence supporting this assertion is quite clear. In the measure in question, the soprano voice appears to re-enter, after a brief rest, with two additional connected statements of the characteristic 8th-note motive which is part of the fugue subject. [Actually, the previously existing soprano voice either becomes the alto, or it splits into two voices on the downbeat of the measure - notice the change in stem direction from the 1st to the 2nd measure of the system]. If the D is correct as it appears, this would be the only statement of the motive in the entire fugue which does not conform melodically to all its other appearances. There is more. The voice leading as it stands involves a pair of parallel unisons, again the only such occurrence - in this case of faulty counterpoint - in the fugue. Finally, the augmented 4th, D to G sharp, sounds disturbing, yet the piece is full of augmented and diminished intervals, both melodically and harmonically, which sound perfectly natural.

There are many instances in various editions of Franck’s organ music in which I believe there are misprints of this sort. As responsible musicians, we need to be on the lookout for this potential problem in our daily musical studies. This is especially true in the more complex chromatic styles and those of the 20th century, but we can never be too careful, whatever the style or composer.

Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

Most tonal music is notated with a key signature. It should be noted that ‘key’ and ‘key signature’ are not synonyms. F sharp major is a key; 6 sharps is a key signature. And most tonal music modulates from the home key and returns to it by the end of the piece. When the music moves to a secondary key, accidentals are inevitable, with special exception.

Let us use E flat major as a home key and consider its five diatonically related keys - F minor, G minor, A flat major, B flat major and C minor - in terms of the ‘accidental landscape’ when each of these secondary keys is in force: F minor - D flat, E natural; G minor - A natural, E natural, F sharp; A flat major - D flat; B flat major - A natural; C minor - A natural, B natural.

For minor keys, we shall use B minor, which like all minor keys, resides in a 9-note system including, in the case of B minor, the common accidentals G sharp and A sharp. Its related keys are D major, E minor, F sharp minor, G major and A major. For D major - this is the exception - accidentals disappear; E minor - C natural, D sharp; F sharp minor - G sharp, D sharp, E sharp; G major - C natural; A major - G sharp [and no A sharp].

An obvious conclusion can be drawn from this: as a musical score progresses, the music is not necessarily in the home key, or its attendant key signature, in every measure of the piece.

For your consideration: what are the clefs and key signature of the contrapuntal excerpt above? We can assume that the two clefs appear in order of register from bottom to top - bass, baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo soprano, soprano, treble. We should not assume, on the other hand, that the two clefs aren’t the same. There is more than one correct solution within these assumptions.

Score Reading: A Bach Autograph

There are many special features to be observed on the beautiful manuscript of Bach’s [Prelude and] Fugue in G minor, BWV 535 for organ, the opening page of which is shown above: 1] Bach notated his organ works on only two staves, usually with the soprano clef above the bass. 2] While the fugue is in G minor, the key signature contains only one flat. It was common practice in the Baroque period and earlier to notate music in the minor mode with a key signature of one flat less than we use today. This is known as the ‘Dorian’ key signature. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor [the so-called ‘Dorian’] has no flats in the key signature. Interestingly, in the Peters edition, the G minor fugue has a modern key signature while the Dorian adheres to the original. The one-flat key signature works as well for G minor as the modern two-flat version: Bach writes the flat symbol when E flat is required, and writes nothing when he needs E natural. In the modern signature, a natural sign needs to be written before E when that pitch occurs, but nothing is necessary when E flat is intended. It is a perfect illustration of the old saying ‘six of one, a half dozen of the other. 3] In the 4th measure, Bach rewrites the flat symbol in the 1st repeated group of 16th notes. This is the case in subsequent statements of the fugue’s subject in the home key of G minor and in several other instances throughout the piece. 4] Both the 1st and 2nd systems end with a half-measure, thus no bar line appears. 5] Two additional staff lines, rather than individual ledger lines, appear on the top staff toward the beginning of the 3rd system, and extra staff lines appear briefly in other places. 6] Bach often notates three voices on the upper staff alone, with crystal clarity. 7] The third entrance of the fugue subject, in the tenor, takes place on the 3rd beat of the 1st complete measure of the 2nd system, signifying an invisible shift of the bar line. The ‘displaced’ bar line shifts back to the notated downbeat when the bass voice enters in the last full measure of the 2nd system, where Bach writes in ‘Ped.’ The pedal begins a long rest in the last measure of the 3rd system, and does not return until the following page. 8] The prominent diminished 5th in the 2nd measure of the fugue subject is replaced by a perfect 5th later in the fugue, when the tonality shifts to the relative major.

Tonal Relationships: Transposition

The tonal organization of Schumann’s exquisitely beautiful song cycle, Dichterliebe, op. 48, is unique and quite special. Each of the 16 songs is in a different key, but never are two unrelated keys juxtaposed. The accompanying chart [1st column] indicates the succession of keys, starting in F sharp minor [1] and ending up in the closely related key of C sharp minor [16]. As the chart shows, this is not accomplished by any direct means, but rather, by an excursion first into keys with fewer sharps, followed by the two keys with no sharps or flats, on to keys with increasing numbers of flats, a jump from B flat major to its minor subdominant key of E flat minor [the only non-diatonic relationship in the cycle], on to C flat major - but written enharmonically as B major, and finally to both keys with signatures of 4 sharps.

Why does the title of this post refer to ‘transposition?’ Surely, we know that there exist editions of the lieder and chanson repertoire that are transposed, either up or down, from the original key. The reason for this is obvious: most vocalists have a specific range in which they sing comfortably, and much of the repertoire, in its original keys, does not always coincide with that range.

Two serious issues emerge: 1] is it of no concern to anyone that the altered keys possess entirely different characters than the originals? and 2] should pianists be expected to learn this repertoire in whatever key someone desires?

First things first. Vocal music is conceived by the composer in a specific tonality, the same as instrumental music. Schumann wrote his 2nd Symphony in C major - the same key as ‘Ich grolle nicht’ [no. 7]. His Piano Quintet is in E flat major - the same key as ‘Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen’ [no. 11]. And the Violoncello Concerto is in A minor - the same key as ‘Und wüssten’s die Blumen’ [no. 8]. It is obvious that each key had a certain meaning to Schumann and to each of the master composers. With only rare exception, we don’t see transpositions of any of their instrumental music, so why the double standard? We don’t see transpositions of choral music either - imagine the ‘Dies Irae’ of the Verdi Requiem in E minor or the ‘Cum Sancto Spiritu’ of Bach's B minor Mass in E flat major? And we certainly don’t see transpositions of Mozart’s ‘Exultate, Jubilate’ down to D major for mezzo soprano, or worse yet, the operas.

As to the pianistic question: anyone who is a collaborative pianist knows that much of the lieder/chanson repertoire is as demanding technically as is chamber and solo piano music. Thus, for the same reasons that we wouldn’t suddenly decide to play Beethoven Sonatas or Chopin Ballades in the keys of our choice, we should not be called upon to participate in a distortion of the composer’s original intentions in vocal music, complete with potentially impossible technical challenges.

There is a much more troubling issue. In certain editions of Dichterliebe, for example, the ‘low’ key, there is a terrible distortion of the internal tonal architecture of the work. Referring once again to the chart, the center column indicates the interval down from the original key in which the transposed version appears. One would think that if a masterwork is to be transposed, at least the relative tonal structure should remain intact. Not in this case. Several of the resulting key relationships in certain editions are disturbing: D major moves to G minor [quite clumsily, in fact], B flat major is followed by F sharp minor, and C major goes to A major as well as the reverse. Also note that ‘Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen’ [no. 12] is only a minor 2nd lower than the original. Why bother? Schumann would probably be infuriated by all of this tampering, and would undoubtedly disapprove of the muddiness that some of the songs acquire in the lower register of the piano.

The most unfortunate aspect of all this is that the distortion of the tonal progression of Dichterliebe goes unnoticed by those who use faulty editions. I remember submitting a proposal to a ‘music theory society’ on the tonal organization of Dichterliebe, to be delivered at an all-Schubert/Schumann convention at which Dichterliebe was to be performed by a baritone. I was rejected because ‘the board decided that too many people applied from far away places’. I discovered later on - from the pianist who performed it - that my topic would have revealed that their performance was in fact a distortion and that my presentation would expose it. Well, doesn’t every fraud deserve a coverup?

My message here is not to attempt to put a stop to the practice of random transposition, but simply to encourage those who engage in this practice to know what they are doing. I shall never listen to Dichterliebe in any key other than the original, any more than I would listen to Brahms 4th Symphony in B flat minor.

Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

For the exercise in determining the clefs and key signature shown above, three assumptions can be made: 1) there aren’t necessarily three different clefs 2) the clefs are never ‘crossed’ 3) there is more than one correct solution.

Obviously, this is an imitative piece in three voices. Once the key is determined, consider these questions: 1) What is the range of all three voices? 2) What is the significance of the juxtaposition of the two consecutive sharp notes [dotted quarter to eighth] in measures 2, 3 and 4 in terms of conventional ‘scale’ nomenclature? 3] In which measures do complete triads - either in root position or inverted - occur as the result of the contrapuntal motion among the voices?

Score Reading: The Vocal Clefs

Like his contemporaries and predecessors, J. S. Bach used the soprano, alto and tenor clefs in all of his vocal compositions as well as in numerous instrumental works. The three ‘C’ clefs appear throughout the Cantatas, Masses, Passions and Motets. In the harpsichord and organ works, we encounter Bach’s use of soprano clef, not treble, in the right hand part. He also frequently wrote in the alto or tenor clefs for the inner voices in the organ music.

The first eight measures of a facsimile of the autograph of ‘Dir, dir, Jehova, will ich singen’, one of Bach’s hundreds of chorale harmonizations, is given above. Several features are worth noting. There is a large bow brace joining the four staves. Bar lines do not connect through the system. The key signatures for the soprano and bass voices involve pitches that are above their respective staves. Bach copied both lines of German text four times and assigned each pair of sentences a bow brace. The downward stems of half notes are drawn to the right of the note head. The eighth notes from measure 6 to 7 are beamed across the bar line. There is a thickening of ink in the tenor part in measure 5 and a few smudges above the tenor in measure 6. Not that it interferes in any way with the beauty of the autograph, it appears that the tool Bach used to create the 5-line staves was not calibrated properly: the first and fourth spaces are noticeably narrower than the two inner spaces on each staff. The staves, being hand drawn with the staff tool, are not always straight and parallel.

Structurally, there are many beautiful features. The eight measures are almost entirely diatonic: the only chromaticism is in measure 7 in the alto - a lower neighboring tone. With the exception of the subdominant harmony throughout measure 2 and on the last beat of measure 3, the excerpt is limited to tonic and dominant chords. A prominent motive, first appearing in the soprano in measure 1 and consisting of a quarter note followed by a neighboring tone figure connected to a chord tone skip in eighth notes, is restated in the a] bass - measure 2, b] soprano - measure 6, c] bass - measure 7, and d] tenor and bass - measure 5, a rhythmic variant, in parallel 3rds.

Harmonic Techniques: Voice Leading

The study of 4-part harmony is introduced in Lesson 7 of ‘Studies in Music Theory’ by James Harrison, Louis Martin and Myron Fink. A set of basic tools is established - conjunct voice leading using the tonic and dominant triads in root position, and the complete and incomplete forms of the root position dominant 7th chord. Rhythmic extensions of the tonic are also part of the initial vocabulary. With these resources and no more, it becomes apparent that it is possible to create a short harmonic piece that has a convincing musical shape. Lesson 8 then goes a few steps further by adding disjunct and composite voice leadings as well as rhythmic extensions of the dominant.

Two realizations of the same figured bass appear in the example above. The authors compare the two pieces, revealing that with an imaginative treatment of the available resources, a great deal can be accomplished. The first setting lacks any sense of direction or meaningful shape but is technically correct, while the second exhibits a beautiful pitch contour in the soprano voice, as well as more elegant shaping in the alto and tenor. The various rhythmic extensions make a world of difference at this or at any stage in the study of harmony. Also note that the bass line itself [identical in both versions] has an attractive contour, despite its restriction to only the tonic and dominant notes.

The examples are quoted by permission of the authors.