Directional Tonality in Schumann's Early Works

[1] In the "high tonal" style of 1700-1900, most works begin and end in the same key ("monotonality"), thereby suggesting a hierarchy of chords and tones directed towards that tonic.(1) This hierarchical approach also explains to a lesser extent works having a tonally ambiguous beginning.(2) Occasionally, however, works will begin and end in different, but unambiguous keys ("directional tonality"), thereby associating keys in decentralized complexes, and even suggesting their approximate equality ("dual tonality").(3) In early nineteenth-century music, Schubert's eclectic approach to mediant relationships, particularly chromatic ones, is often taken as representative of the tonal innovations of that time.(4) For instance, Schubert's "Der Alpenjager" features segments of two chromatic third cycles that depict a youth's desire to head off on a hunt, his leaving for the hunt, and the spirit of the mountain intervening to protect the intended quarry. The beginnings of sections (measures 1, 26, and 55) articulate a major-third cycle of C, A, and E major, while the song's beginning (measure 1) and the ends of its last two sections (measures 49-50 and 64-71) assert part of a minor-third cycle, C-G(F)-A, the middle key of Gbeing associated with the gazelle's mortality. The work begins in C, the "home" key, and ends in A, a mediation between C and F, thereby asserting a global, chromatic minor-third pairing.(5)[2] Robert Schumann's early period (1830-1839) also features a small number of directional-tonal works. Although the non-harmonic aspects of his music have been closely studied, most notably musical form and metrical dissonance, his approach to directional tonality is curiously unexplored.(6) This is a shame, since Schumann's directional-tonal techniques provide a window into some of his most extreme and compelling expressive moments. In contrast with Schubert's frequently chromatic motions between structural tonics, Schumann's global motions are much more restrictive: they are (1) entirely diatonic since Schumann always follows chromatic regions with material in the beginning tonic;(7) (2) always related by consonant intervals, since dissonant intervals (seconds, tritones) are unstylistic; (3) third-related since motions by perfect fifth resolve to one key;(8) and (4) much more commonly related by minor third (relative major/minor) instead of by major third.(9) Thus, Schumann's normative directional-tonal motions (and the structural pairings resulting from them) are by diatonic minor third, whereas major-third motions can be viewed as exceptions. (Sometimes apparent directional-tonal situations arise through local displacements of tonic chords, but these cases are easily viewed as monotonal.)(10) All diatonic pairings closely relate their tonics since their scales preserve many common tones, leaving them vulnerable to monotonal reinterpretation.(11) Diatonic minor-third pairings, preserving all the tones of one scale, are simply extreme cases of this phenomenon. Such pairings are not marked by virtue of the tonal relation, but they may be marked if they are combined with surface discontinuities.Example 1. Marked modulation from D minor to F major in Schumann's Intermezzo op. 4, no. 5[3] Example 1 shows a passage from Schumann's op. 4, no. 5, an especially interesting (and unusual) directional-tonal work that moves from F major to D minor.(12) This passage reverses the course of the entire work by going from a clear D minor tonality in measures 29-32 to a cadence in C (second ending), which is reinterpreted as V of F major by measure 44. The modulation from D minor to F major, at first glance, is seamless. It is marked, however, due to the registral ascent in measures 32-35, the hemiola pattern in the outer voices, and the parallelism of C6 and C6 between the two endings. The intersection between the two scales, D minor and F major, allows each key to impinge on the other's territory. …