A Response to Schmalfeldt’s “Form as Process of Becoming”: Once More on the Performance and Analysis of Schubert’s Sonata in A minor, Op. 42

Tempo and Performance[1] In terms of the all-important performance parameter of tempo choice, there has always been much debate amongst performers over whether a chosen tempo is to be strictly maintained throughout a movement or work. For the 21st century musician, the a priori acceptance of unity and coherence as valid assumptions for musical works steeps deep within musical consciousness. The "one-tempo-only" rule of thumb is taught in modern times owing to the belief that a constant tempo ensures a composition's formal unity, and that the work would "fall apart" if disparate tempi were applied. This position is held by many eminent musicians of the 20th century, including Rudolf Serkin, who claims: "For any music, the pulse should remain unified... In the Appassionata or the Waldstein Sonatas, I think a tempo that is not unified is a crime" (Elder 1970, 15). If we understand formal unity as the syntactical coherence of a work's overall formal narrative, however, the severe restriction of a performance parameter as central as tempo choice could be detrimental to the artistic inflection of formal units and their different functional associations.[2] It should be apparent, too, that aspects of meter form the one parameter that is most inextricably linked with tempo choice. This is confirmed in a well-known letter Mozart wrote to his father concerning the playing of Clementi, in which he says: "Clementi is a ciarlatano, like all Italians. He writes Presto over a sonata or even Prestissimo Alla breve, and plays it himself Allegro in 4/4 time" (Anderson 1966, 850). In my analysis of Schubert's A minor sonata, I will show how changes in metrical accentuation contribute to the coloration of large-scale formal processes of becoming, and, in turn, I will demonstrate how these metric shifts affect tempo choice in performance.Analysis of Schubert Op. 42[3] Figure 1 attempts to capture the type of "form as process" that Janet Schmalfeldt has so beautifully described in both her 1995 article on Beethoven's Tempest sonata (Schmalfeldt 1995) and her upcoming book chapter on this Schubert movement, in which she argues that the Schubert shares formal characteristics with the Tempest. The processual nature of this type of 19th century form requires that the listener, as Schmalfeldt so eloquently states, "[listen] backwards as well as in the moment-by remembering what they have heard, while retrospectively reinterpreting formal functions in the light of an awareness of the interplay between conventions and transformations" (Schmalfeldt, forthcoming). With Figure 1 I try to graphically represent, albeit with expected awkwardness, this idea of "form coming into being" and the fluid mode of listening that this type of formal process demands. The figure is designed to convey how the "Structural Domains" combine in rhythmic dialogue to define, at different points in time, the "Formal Functions" at different levels of the formal hierarchy.(2)Figure 1. Formal Process of Exposition (inspired by Schmalfeldt and Caplin)(click to enlarge and see the rest)[4] In my view, the phrase structure of the opening paragraph leading up to measure 26 inflects a highly unusual and dramatically re-interpreted Classical sentence. Most immediately discernable is the expansiveness of Schubert's material. When the basic idea (measures 1-4) is sequentially repeated (measures 5-10), it undergoes a process of expansion that extends it from an already unusual length of 4 measures to 6 measures, ending on the downbeat of measure 10. As a result, the tremendously expanded fantasie-like cadential build-up from measures 10-21 seems not only logical, but also necessary to counter-balance the expanded and improvisatory nature of the opening presentation. The most powerful manner in which Schubert renders his main theme "processual," as opposed to expository, however, is by shaping measures 1-25 in such a way that omits a clear presentation of the background tonic. …