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Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 opens with a confident thematic statement by the orchestra.
The movement gradually builds in intensity, culminating in a wild, flamboyant harpsichord solo.
The harpsichord seems to bring the music to a precarious cliff, ready to fall off. But it rescues itself and leadsback to a return of the main theme.
In spite of the tension of the harpsichord solo, the music has managed to regain its equilibrium. Time has not causedlasting damage: in a moment of great affirmation, the opening music is reclaimed in its original form.
Stravinsky's Elegy for JFK , with text by W.H. Auden, offers a more unexpected and subtle example.The piece opens with the line of text,
"When a just man dies,/Lamentation and praise/Sorrow and joy, areone."
The music then continues with little exact repetition, in brief, haiku-like statements.
At the work's close, Stravinsky reprises the opening line exactly.
The musical return is striking; it adds an undeniable emphasis and a timeless quality to Stravinsky's eulogy.Framing the piece with the text repetition was the composer's decision; in Auden's manuscript, this line oftext occurs only at the end.
Because music is a performance art, even an "exact" return is an idealization. On paper, the music's content may beidentical. But even the most expert musician cannot precisely duplicate his or her performance identically; inevitably,there will be subtle variations.
Furthermore, you, the listener have changed. You have experienced the intervening music; just the fact that thereturn is already familiar, rather than something fresh, gives it a different quality. Viewing the fateful Game 6 of the1986 World Series on videotape is not the same as seeing it the night it happened. The events may be identical, but theyhave a different significance when viewed in retrospect. Nevertheless, these nuances of performance and perception aresubsumed within the identity of content and design. When a musical passage returns exactly, the emphasis is on thematerial's endurance and transcendence.
On the other hand, if the musical material returns with significant changes, then time has had an effect. The musicis not stable enough to reconstitute itself exactly: It is evanescent, transitory, and elusive. It participates in time: the intervening action "weathers" the material, propelling it in new directions.It is a music of becoming , of irreversible change and progress.
Please listen to the opening of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 . The excerpt fades out at the arrival of a contrasting, more lyrical section.
About five minutes later, this opening passage is reprised. The excerpt once again fades out at the arrival of the contrasting section.
This time, time has had an effect: Instead of a gradual buildup, the return begins at once with the full orchestra at a very loud dynamic. The harmonic tension is intensified. Most interestingly, the return is compressed : It takes exactly half the amount of time as the original. This is an inescapable fact, verifiable by the clock. Yet many listeners, even professional musicians, do not recognize this consciously at first. This is the benefit of analysis: It helps make us more aware of what we are all hearing.
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