# 6 Towards a deeper level of structure

◄Previous: 5.5 Interruption: a summary

## 6.1 Considering patterns on a larger scale

So far I have introduced some fairly sophisticated and difficult ideas in this course, but on a very small scale. In AA314_3, you will look at two entire movements taken from Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. This will mean dealing with issues such as modulation and overall form, which have been outside the scope of this course. In preparation for such large-scale analysis, I would now like you to listen to a more extended passage from one of the Mozart piano sonatas you have been studying, so that we can consider some patterns of tension and resolution on a larger scale than we have seen so far.

If you recall the rondo theme from K333 (Example 23), you will remember that it has an interrupted structure, ending on V at the halfway point. If we were to stop the music at this point, it would feel incomplete; only at bar 8 does the theme reach its closure. To put it another way, bars 1–4 form only an incomplete musical ‘sentence’; we must wait until bar 8 before the sense of the passage is completed.

Sometimes, especially in more extended musical structures, the point of arrival may be delayed, producing a prolonged sense of expectation. When this happens, the moment of arrival at the tonic, which in Mozart always seems inevitable, feels all the more satisfying and complete. Our last example is taken from the end of this same movement, and is a glorious instance of delaying closure on a much greater scale.

## Activity 20

Turn to the score of the last movement of the Sonata in B flat, K333 and look at the beginning of the final section at bar 148. The theme that begins in bar 148 is, in fact, the second subject of this sonata-rondo movement, recapitulated here in the tonic key (B flat). Listen carefully from this point to the end of the movement (Extract 12), whilst following the score. You may wish to listen through more than once. This is a rare and wonderful example of a true cadenza in a piano sonata. Traditionally, the cadenza belongs in the genre of the concerto, where the soloist has a final flourish before the orchestra returns to wrap things up; here, Mozart creates this effect using the keyboard alone. When you have familiarised yourself with the passage, write notes in answer to the following questions.

1. At which point do you feel that the music achieves its closure, and why?

2. Here we have no textural contrast as between soloist and orchestra, and yet the passage sounds unequivocally like a cadenza. Why is this?

Click to listen to Extract 12

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Click to view W. A. Mozart, Sonata in B flat, K333, third movement

### Discussion

This is rather different in style from the previous exercises, because in issues of large-scale structure, the analytical process is not mechanistic or rule-bound, but based much more on hearing, intuition and (to an extent) subjective judgement. There are two places in the early part of the extract where there is a perfect cadence on to a tonic B flat chord: bars 155–6, and bars 163–4. But at neither of these points does the music really rest, but rushes onwards with a gathering sense of excitement. So it is unlikely that you heard the decisive closure of the passage as happening before the big pause on the first beat of bar 171.

So, where did you locate the closure? It is unlikely that you located it at this emphasised pause in bar 171. Although in conventional harmonic terms this is a tonic chord, here in second inversion (Ic), it does not sound complete. This is because, as we have seen several times now, the second inversion chord is actually a dissonance: the interval of a fourth over the bass is dissonant. So this 6/4 chord is expected to resolve to a dominant chord in root position (6/4 resolving to 5/3).

Yet this resolution does not immediately happen. Although our rondo theme returns in bar 173, there is a crucial difference. The bass note F continues through the texture, giving us the 6/4 chord again. We then pass through a series of seemingly remote areas, including the tonic minor (bar 175), and a chord of G flat major (bar 177). Even these strangely Romantic colourings, though, are underpinned by a logical process of voice leading in the bass. The dominant, F, moves upwards to its chromatic neighbour, G♭ (bar 177), returning by means of a German sixth chord (bar 178) to the dominant chord (bar 179). This dominant chord is prolonged still further until the end of bar 185. I will gloss over the details of this intervening passage, which is rather complex, except to say that the music still ‘feels’ as though the dominant chord is in operation. The big dominant seventh at bar 199 finally suggests the possibility of a closure, and the cadenza comes to an end with the return of the rondo theme (this time properly supported by a tonic) in bar 200.

But even now, this is not the end of the piece; and to me, it does not feel like true closure (try stopping the music at the start of bar 200). This is because the C in the right hand, with its characteristic trill (bar 199), does not fall to a B♭ as we might expect but instead rises to the F, which begins the rondo theme, giving the feeling of a new beginning rather than a close. In the concluding section, Mozart cleverly delays the sense of closure several times. At bars 206–7 and 209–10, he leads us to expect a full close on the tonic, only to weaken the closure by the use of the first inversion. Only at bar 214 do we finally have a full-scale perfect cadence, with the second degree of the scale (the trill on C) falling to the tonic in the treble, over a root-position V–I in the bass. The rest of the movement is therefore post-closural, and we would probably call it a coda.

This example shows how Mozart's language is based on the listener's large-scale expectations of closure, in which the surface complexities are regulated by a long-range drive towards a perfect cadence. ‘Perfect cadence’ here requires definition. You will probably understand the term to mean a progression from V to I (which is partly true), but a perfect cadence must fulfil other conditions: one voice should normally contain a falling motion from the second degree of the scale to the tonic, while the bass should normally have V and I chords in root position (we saw in the above example how the music did not sound quite complete if one or more of these conditions was not met).

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OpenLearn - Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground
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