Prelude (2:08)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIejkpS_1DQ
Despite
the "Allegretto" indication and the quarter note equals 144 beats per
minute in the score, this prelude feels as though its harmonic rhythm is
anchored to the half note and could have been scored at 72bpm in 2/4. Music analysis in general and formal analysis
in particular can become a realm of debate quickly and I know that other
guitarists and music analysts could dispute this overarching point I'm about to
make. Nevertheless, I suggest we think
of this prelude as a gentle and pastoral sonata, of the "Type 1” variety
classified by Hepokoski and Darcy. I
realize that that is potentially a hard sell but I'm going to explain what I'm
doing with the "elements" in Elements of Sonata Theory that I am
using to make this argument.
Hepokoski
and Darcy define sonata forms as explicable in terms of a number of concepts
and one of the key concepts is called "rotation". This means that a theme 1 and a theme 2 and
so on will often appear in the same order across the larger structure,
deformations of form excepted. For
instance, in a Type 3 ("textbook" sonata form) a process of Theme 1
and Theme 2 and Theme 3 in the exposition would be repeated in the
development. We'd see the themes appear
in numeric order in the development more or less as they did in the exposition,
and they will appear in 1-2-3 order in the recapitulation. In a Type 2 sonata theme 1 may be dominant in
the development and never appear in what we could call the recapitulation but theme
2 and 3 will appear. The best example of
a Type 2 sonata form in the guitar literature I can think of that explicates
Hepokoski and Darcy's roadmap for Type 2 sonatas at large would be Diabelli'sOp. 29, No. 3 guitar sonata in F major.
Another less inspired and inspiring example, for me, would be Molitor's Op. 7 guitar sonata. We'll come back to
the idea of rotation in time.
What
a Type 1 sonata has are themes, identifiable themes that appear in what's
called a "double rotation" form.
Theme 1 shows up, Theme 2 shows up, then Theme 1 shows up in the recap
and Theme 2 shows up in the recap. There
is no development as we'd normally think of it and also little to no
transitions.
Another
aspect about "rotation" and sonata forms Hepokoski and Darcy
highlight is that one of the common ways some composers chose to shake things
up and subvert expectation was to start the recapitulation with the right theme
(i.e. Theme 1) but bring it back in the wrong key. If in a sonata the recapitulation norm would
be that if you started in C major your Theme 1 would recapitulate in C major
then one of the tricks composers could play is to bring Theme 1 back in A major
or E major or A flat major or, basically, any key that was not the
"home" key. The recapitulation
might eventually get to the "right" key but possibly only half-way
through Theme 1 and sometimes not until the transition (if applicable). I mention this because this kind of fake-out
recapitulation in which Theme 1 comes back in a defiantly wrong key and doesn't
get to the appropriate recapitulation key is a stunt Wenzel Matiegka pulls in
his Op. 31 No.1 guitar sonata in C major and, personally, I think it's a very
funny stunt.
Why
am I mentioning all of this stuff about early 19th century guitar sonatas and
contested aspects of Elements of Sonata Theory?
Koshkin's little gentle prelude in E major makes sense to me as a Type 1
sonata. It could also be mapped out as a
simple ABAB form but I intend to explain why the modulations and key regions
suggest sonata form to me. A simple
reason merely describing this prelude as ABAB is not going to suffice is
although we can map out ABAB the key regions key shifting across A and B
material.
Theme
1 of Koshkin's prelude opens gently with an arpeggiation theme in E major,
exactly the guitar-friendly key we'd expect in a prelude. About this theme there are two things I want
to highlight.
First,
there's a descending melodic line inside the upper-string arpeggios that can be
thought of as the "official" tune but it tends to center on beats 2
and 3 of the measures. There's a
counter-melody in the bass that has sustained notes and its melodic activity
clusters around beats 1 and 4. As the
melody in the bass register rises the melody lurking within the arpeggios in
the upper register gently tip toes down.
The
call and response between registers clustering in beats 4-1 and 2-3
respectively would, in another context, be what Mark Burford describes as the
"gospel seesaw" that shows up in recordings done by Mahalia Jackson
and Mildred Falls. Koshkin's got an
elegant and simple Theme 1 in E major but what's less simple when you get past
the rippling arpeggiated surface is there are two strands of melodic activity
at work that move in alternating beat region spaces. Asya Selyutina does a wonderful job of both
separating these rhythmic regions to let the melodic interest come through for
both the upper and lower lines and doing so in a way that lets an alert
listener sense that there's a lot going on here. What looks on the page like a merely two-line
texture is, in an actual performance a harmonically rich soundworld that has
four to six note chords shimmering in ways that the notes on the page don't
really convey.
Second,
the theme never completes when it's introduced.
By measure 9 we're at a new phrase (0:19) but the key is now C
major. With the call-and-response
"seesaw" texture abandoned this would be the appearance of our
"B" material in an ABAB structure but since the phrases are
continuous it's tough to say this is binary or even rounded binary. We have a theme 1 gesture that lasts 8
measures and what sounds like a theme 2 or a continuation phrase that continues
to move further and further away from the opening tonic key. This new theme is a simple descending tune
that dips down and then rises back up with steady pulsing accompaniment
figuration underneath it. But ...
the
melody in this second gesture (aka Theme 2) overshoots its theoretical
destination and instead of returning to a chord in C major shifts up to a
melodic note of B flat above an E flat chord.
Koshkin's working with short 4 and 8 measure phrases that refuse to land
on their expected cadential landing points.
Noting in passing as I have that guitar sonata movements by Molitor and
Molino can be built around what seem like half-themes in the piano literature (which Matiegka also did in one of his etudes),
I'm suggesting here that Koshkin is working on a very small scale but he's
outlined two contrasting thematic ideas with contrasting figuration and
contrasting key regions. It may be a very
small exposition but I think it fulfills the structural and rhetorical
functions of a sonata form in spite of the fact that there are no firm cadences
and we have more of a "continuous melody" thing going on.
The
common thread in the first half of the prelude is that Koshkin gives us a
melodic line that deliberately spins off target from whatever the
just-established tonal region is to go in a new developmental direction. Theme 2, like Theme 1 before it, doesn't
complete. Instead Theme 2 spirals up to
a high E floating (0:34) atop an F major seventh chord with a melodic line that
reprises the Theme 1 "seesaw" material. This, I propose, is where we get a tiny, tiny
development section that will transition us back to a more formal return of
Theme 1.
Theme
1 does return at 0:46) but we're firmly in the key of A flat. Now we're at the point for which I've written
so much earlier about how composers can subvert expectations at one level while
fulfilling them at other levels.
Koshkin, if he were writing this as a sonata form, has brought back
Theme 1 where it would be expected, either in a repeating exposition or in a
recapitulation or in a development but only in a development would presenting
Theme 1 material in A flat major "make sense" if we've started in the
key of E major. It isn't too long before
the loping "seesaw" theme moves to Theme 2 material which now,
finally, is in E major (1:02) and moves to G major by 1:11. We keep having phrases and continuation
phrases and then new phrases but Koshkin avoids cadences across this little
prelude. As Theme 2 material moves along
we get a sequence of teardrop chromatic lines in the bass rising above a
sequence of thirds in the treble strings sounding out in half note values (G
sharp to B to D). At measure 45 Koshkin
sets up an extended half cadence in which Theme 1 material is pulsing over a
dominant pedal point. It's not until measure 51 we finally get a cadence in a
spacious E sonority with a 12th fret harmonic on string 1 floating above the
open sixth string.
While
this little prelude is a mere two minutes long I would suggest that the way to
make sense of it musically is to think of it as a beautiful little sonata, a
Type 1 sonata as Hepokoski and Darcy have their types. It’s true Koshkin avoids all of the cadences
that would be expected but the thing that makes Elements of Sonata Theory useful is that we musicians can use
whatever elements work in helping to elucidate what seems to be a sonata form
and then jettison all the other elements (like the necessity of firm cadences
as non-negotiable points of structural delineation) that don’t apply to this particular piece of music.
Finally,
should it seem I’ve played a bit fast and loose with how small “themes” can be
when Koshkin’s prelude seems to be phrase after phrase that avoids firm
cadences, let me quote Fernando Sor on the issue of accompanying. Sor explained how, if you will, the symphony
is to a life-sized portrait of a person what the guitar might be as a
reproduction in book might be. By way of
Merrick’s translation:
Method for the
Spanish Guitar
Fernando Sor,
translation by A. Merrick
page 36
A pianoforte
accompaniment, if well made, should be constructed like an orchestral quartett
or trio. Now, by taking that accompaniment as a pattern, I can, thereby,
regúlate that of the guitar. Comparisons greatly assist the comprehension, and
I request the reader to allow me one to prove, that if the guitar does not give
the same notes as the orchestra, either in quantity or pitch, the accompaniment
will not be less the same. If a portrait be made as large as life, it may
exhibit all the smallest details that are observed in the original: this is the
orchestra. Let a copy be made of this portrait in dimensions only one third of
the former, a great part of the little details will be suppressed: other parts,
which in the full size were developed, will be represented perhaps by a single
point—the relative proportion of the features will always be the same, and
although each will receive fewer touches of the pencil, the same object will be
seen: this is the pionoforte. If of this copy another be made again reduced
one-third, it will be necessary to make many more suppressions. A small circle
of the original may be represented by a point, and yet produce the effect of
the small circle; so that the means of seizing the resemblance being fewer in
detail, the likeness will be perfect if the features preserve the same relative
proportions ; and this is the guitar.
When we assess what sound to be sonata
forms written on and for the guitar we should not necessarily dismiss the
possibility that a guitarist composer has written a sonata form because guitar
sonatas since the 1790s have not behaved the way piano sonatas by Beethoven or
Schubert or Haydn or Mozart have behaved.
There are possibilities, constraints and material exigencies to writing
for the guitar we guitarists must always keep in mind but we should be conversant
enough in theoretical and historical literature to be able to recognize, as I’ve
just argued, that Koshkin’s Prelude in E major can be taken as a lyric sonata
movement even if by the “textbook” definitions handed down by pianists and
conductors it would not seem as though a sonata has been written at all.
Of course if Koshkin wasn’t thinking of
writing a sonata form he’s welcome to say so but I’ve had fun making a case
that he did write a wonderful little sonata movement along the way. As one of my music professors said long ago,
the beautiful thing about music theory is that you and I could have different
convictions about what just happened in the music and we “could” both still
actually be right. Now let’s get to the
fugue.
Fugue
(2:57)
Call
it the conviction or bias of an American guitarist but I wonder if it’s
possible to write a fugue in E major in the twenty-first century and not have
its subject be some kind of blues riff.
Koshkin’s subject for this fugue is a laconic blues riff. He starts on E, goes to F double sharp and
drops down to E before jumping up to G sharp and dropping down to E to end the
first phrase in the subject. The subject
is a three-measure line that doesn’t resolve or even start to resolve until the
answer shows up at 0:10. By this time
the original line has moved from F double sharp down to F sharp and sets up a
half-cadence that leads to the countersubject in the lower voice (also about
0:10)
What
makes this countersubject fun is it’s a nice little ominous rising figure that
starts on the second half of beat 3 at measure 60—D, E, F# in eighth notes
through the end of the measure; G natural and F# in quarters at measure 61 on
beats 1 and 2 which is followed up by a rest and then three eighth notes moving
through B, C#, C double sharp at the end of the measure; then quarter notes
throughout measure 62 on D, E#, F# and F double sharp. What makes this countersubject fun is, you
can see from the notes, ending on F double sharp means Koshkin can lead by way
of a bluesy augmented second to G sharp in what will become an inner voice for
the entrance of the subject in the third, lowermost voice at 0:49. At this point the countersubject has been
transposed and moves through G#, A, B on to C natural and B. The upper voice goes
into half notes on E above and below this line, which is voice-crossing for
those unfamiliar with the score at this point.
What
Koshkin does next is move fairly directly by 0:28 to a middle entry in A
major. He’s made a point of having his
middle entry perform the subdominant harmonic function that we might expect to
show up in a blues vocabulary at this point.
That the musical lines here in the fugue, as they were in the prelude,
never neatly resolve into a cadence is played to the advantage of keeping
momentum going in this fugue and doing so in a way that pays homage to blues as
a musical language, one which, we might have to add, is more than a century old
and has spanned the globe.
Koshkin
didn’t really need a second real countersubject. His subject and countersubject
are good enough to build the entire fugue around, which is what we’re going to
hear and see him do.
At
0:37 there is a new idea introduced, a descending trio of quarter notes. G, E and D in quarter note values one after
the other comes out sounding like a rhythmic augmentation of some kind of
pentatonic ragtime riff. This motto has
the ability to let Koshkin rework the lower voices so that his harmonies shift
from G major to C major and the cumulative effect with his high G notes is
oblique motion. It also lets him prepare
for a rapid modulation to D minor by 0:46.
At
0:46 we get what sounds like a new middle entry in the key of D minor but
Koshkin never completes the three-measure subject in this passage. He pits two-thirds of his subject and
countersubject against each other in what could be a middle entry but more
strictly speaking is an episode. By 0:54
he brings back the subject in E but this is a feint, as he harmonizes the
subject as if it were cycling around the third factor of C major. By 0:57 we have another sequence of the
descending quarter note motto, now starting from B flat and going to G and F. This time Koshkin uses the motto to set up a
modal mutation that prepares for a new episode at measure 79 (1:08) in B flat
minor based on a stretto of his countersubject.
This is followed up with another stretto episode on the countersubject
at 1:13 in C sharp minor that leads to another stretto episode that
sequentially develops this staggered presentation of the countersubject in
three voices in A minor at 1:22. As with
the prelude what we’re seeing and hearing here is that Koshkin exploits
thematic relationships and harmonic contrasts anchored in rising (or falling)
thirds of different sizes.
By
1:32 he’s setting up a drive to a new middle entry which shows up at 1:37 in G
minor. Instead of presenting the countersubject here he creates quasi stretto
effects in which the subject is stated in the uppermost voice and sneaks in
half a beat after by showing up at beat 2 in an inner voice. By 1:46 he drops us out of G major into E,
signaling that we’re back in the “home” key and are reaching the structural
climax of the fugue. He embellishes the
key ideas of the subject in sixteenth and thirty-second note flourishes before
creating a big chorale style riff at 1:56 that places the subject as a kind of
dominant pedal decoration that prepares us for the real contrapuntal feat to
show off at 2:07. This is the point
where Koshkin presents the subject in augmentation in the treble voice against
the subject in normal rhythmic values in the alto voice a measure later, while
the bass register takes up the core of the subject to create the effect of a
stretto across the three voices in the fugue.
With a fugue this versatile it’s possible Koshkin could have created a
passage in which his subject was in the bass and he had it answered by the
inversion of the subject harmonized in thirds in the upper two voices. That would have been a fun passage to have in
a fugue like this and … he’s got the right as the composer to have not chosen
that possibility. I mention it because
for me, being a guitarist composer myself, such a possibility with this
wonderful little subject would be irresistible.
Still, a kind of grand stretto where the subject is set in augmentation
up top and answered by a quasi-canon on the subject in the lower voices is also
pretty wonderful. From 2:24 on Koshkin
winds down the fugue with a little march of chords that call back to some of
the more remote modulations and harmonies of the prelude and that could be fun
to analyze on the basis of some kind of Audacious
Euphony basis but I confess I don’t feel up to trying to analyze the coda
at that level, though maybe someone else will want to.
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