Analysis of musemes 1-4

Transcription

Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)
53
Frn03-MusemAnal.fm. 2016-02-01, 03:00
3. Musemes 1‐4
m1: instant altiplano
Ex. 2. Fernando, bars 1-6
The recording starts with a long, held A major chord with no bass reg‐
ister but with sustained notes in the treble, melodic interest in the up‐
per middle register, etc. Bars 1‐6 contain three accompanying and one
foreground museme. Apart from the ‘string wallpaper stasis’ function
of the violin pad (m1b2),1 these musemes, set out in Figure 6 (p. 48), are
referred to as MASSED CHARANGOS (m1b1) and IN PARADISUM (m3a)
while the melodic museme, listed as m1a, is variously named QUENA,
THE HISPANIC FLOURISH, THE MAÑANA TURN, etc. 1.
The Swedish expressions stråkskog (= string forest) and stråktapet (= string wallpa‐
per) cover both types of string pad (‘filling’). The ‘string halo’ (‘silver strings’ or Streichenglorienschein) is used by Bach in the Matthew Passion to accompany and enclose the figure of Jesus in an glittering aura of otherworldliness. For further dis‐
cussion of string pads, see The Dream of Olwen analysis in Tagg & Clarida (2003). 54
Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV) — 3. Musemes 1-4
m1a: quena
Fig. 8. Museme 1a: ‘quena motif’, ‘mañana turn’, ‘Spanish twirl’, etc.2
As shown in the Table of Musematic Occurrence (Fig. 7, p. 49), m1a ap‐
pears in the introduction, as m1a1 and m1a2 (b. 1‐6, 9‐10; pp. 22‐23),
and as m1a3 in verses 2 and 3 (b. 29, p. 28; b. 67‐69, p. 36).3 This melodic
museme is called QUENA because it’s played either on quena or on a
similarly sounding end‐blown flute. At least its timbre is not that of,
say, a transverse Western concert flute, or of an Irish tin whistle, or of a
ney, bansuri, kaval, shakuhachi, spilåpipa or panpipes (zampoñas). Museme
1a1 has also been called SPANISH TWIRL or FLOURISH, for reasons that will
shortly become evident, and the MAÑANA TURN due not only to its per‐
ceived hispanicity but also to a fortuitous visual resemblance beween
the tilde (~), seen in common Spanish words like señor, niño, mañana,
and the symbol in Western notation for the turn as a melodic ornament
closely resembling the of m1a (see end of example 3, p. 55). Recorders (flûte à bec, flauto dolce, Blockflöte), quenas and other types of
end‐blown flutes (with studio reverb in Fernando) playing melodic fig‐
ures similar to m1a can be heard on La Flûte Indienne (1968) and in li‐
,
brary music pieces like Spanish Autumn , Exotic Flute Inca Flute , Cordigliera and Wine Festival (examples 3
through 7). Sung or played on other instruments, similar rhythmic‐me‐
lodic patterns can be found in tunes like Lady of Spain (ex. 8: b. 3, 7), the
two Granadas (ex. 9‐10) and the seguidilla aria from Bizet’s Carmen
(
for ‘Séville’, ex. 11: b. 3), as well as in the parlando rubato
opening to Simon and Garfunkel’s appropriation of the Los Incas ver‐
sion of El Condor Pasa (
, ex. 12). Common PMFCs (paramusical
fields of connotation) for the pieces of interobjective comparison mate‐
rial (IOCM) in examples 3 through 12 (pp. 55‐56) seem to be southern
climes, with particular reference to Spain, or to South America, an An‐
dean‐Indian region being the most likely bet in the latter case. 2.
3.
Quena [MGPC]: Andean end‐blown flute (Fig. 8; Fig. 12, p. 65). The in m1a3 is replaced by over Bm in bar 69.
Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)— 3. Musemes 1-4
55
Ex. 3. Hans Haider: Spanish Autumn (Selected Sounds)
—‘Spain, South America, country + people’
Ex. 4. Gerhard Trede: Exotic Flute (Selected Sounds)
—‘impression,’....‘journey over exotic landscape’
Ex. 5. Inca Flute (CAM) —‘quena’.... ‘Bolivia, Peru, N. Argentina, sadness
and melancholy, valley’
Ex. 6. Cordigliera (CAM) —‘Carnival, festivity in the valley’
Ex. 7. Trevor Duncan: Wine Festival, part (c) (Boosey & Hawkes)
—‘gay, exotic, Mediterranean’
Ex. 8. T. Evans: Lady of Spain (1931)
56
Ex. 9. Albeniz: Granada (1886)
Ex. 10. Lara: Granada (1932)
Ex. 11. Bizet: ‘Près des remparts de Séville’, Carmen Act 1 (1875)
Ex. 12. Simon & Garfunkel with Los Incas (1970): El Condor Pasa – introduction
The PMFCs mentioned on page 54, just before example 3, are reasona‐
bly unequivocal in their ‘Spanishness’ but the Fernando quena museme
is connotatively more precise than that. Let’s narrow down the IOCM to
correspond more exactly with m1a, focusing on examples with a tempo
giusto no faster than moderato and a quasi‐pentatonic melodic profile.4
4.
With the exception of momentarily altered ( ) to just once in verse 3 (b. 69), the lead quena plays m1a entirely in the ionian hexatonic mode whose scale degrees are or, in A, . For a theory of popular hexatonic modes, see Tagg (2014: 165‐170). The descending flute appoggiature in the Interlude (bb. 60‐
61) are a variant of the euroclassical‐sounding museme 5a (see p. 93, ff.) and are consequently ionian heptatonic. The second flute’s parallel thirds include , in A, under the first flute’s recurring s. but no ( ) under (just ).
57
Excluding, for those reasons and for the time being, examples 3, 6, 7, 8,
9, 10 and 11, we’re left with ex. 4 (PMFC ‘impression, journey over ex‐
otic landscape’), ex. 5 (Andean‐Indian regions, ‘sadness, melancholy,
valley’) and ex. 12 (‘Los Incas’ and a large condor bird passing over‐
head —Fig. 9a). The common denominator of connotation in those
three pieces of IOCM is pretty clear: an exotic environment (as viewed/
heard by most Northern Europeans and North Americans), probably
Andean‐Indian, with a rural view large enough to register the passing
(overhead) of a single, very large bird. Fig. 9. El condor pasa (a) at Machu Picchu
- artwork for Deezer; (b) track on
Bridge Over
Troubled
Waters
(Simon &
Garfunkel,
1970)
However, if we concentrate instead on m1a’s characteristic flute sound
and ignore tempo and tonal idiom, we’re left with examples 3 (Spain
Autumn, South America, country, people), 4 (impression, journey over
exotic landscape), 5 (Inca, quena, Bolivia, Peru, N. Argentina, sadness
and melancholy, valley) and 7 (wine festival, gay, exotic, Mediterra‐
nean). That’s not the same connotative sphere as before: despite the
similarity of flute sound in examples 3‐5 and 7, the Andean connota‐
tion (ex. 4‐5) is contradicted by ‘Spain’ (ex. 3) and ‘Mediterranean’ (ex.
7), while there is no clarity about happy (ex. 7) and sad (ex. 5). More im‐
portantly, m1a is only one element in m1, which is in fact a museme
stack, a syncritic unit, a composite ‘now sound’. Museme 1a is simply
melodic foreground figure inside m1. It’s set in relief against an accom‐
panying background environment consisting of m1b (see next) and
m3a (see p. 69, ff.).
58
m1b: charangos and open stillness Fig. 10. m1b: charangos and wide-open stasis/spaces
All variants of m1b share one obvious trait: they all seem to be long,
held, rhytmically, metrically and melodically unconfigured single, ac‐
companimental chords. Well, that’s how they look in notation, even
when, as in Fernando’s verses, they change from A to F#m, Bm and E. In‐
deed, that motoric stasis is, as we’ll see, part of their function in provid‐
ing a background of stillness against which the melodic foreground
figures of flute and vocals can stand out in relief. That said, m1b and its
variants are more than mere chordal Polyfilla spackling potential
cracks in the musical texture because they have particular sonic charac‐
teristics. The tremolando charango sound (m1b1: b. 3‐6, 9‐25, 62‐63) is
one of them, whether or not doubled by piano (b. 13‐25, 62‐63), the ‘sil‐
ver strings’ sound of m1b2 another, and the brightly equalised and re‐
verb‐rich laisser vibrer downstrokes on electric guitar (m1b3) yet
another. In other words, the musical backing in bars 1‐6 may be station‐
ary but it isn’t ‘neutral’ and it isn’t, for example, anguished, cheeky,
dull, dark, dense, heavy, lugubrious, mechanical, round, small, stern or
threatening. The quasi‐parlando senza misura tonic A major tremolando on what
might be 12‐string guitars in the Fernando recording (m1b1) has been
given a substantial boost of treble frequency so that the rapid percus‐
sive quality of plectrum or fingernail ‘scratching’ is in evidence, result‐
ing in a sound reminiscent of massed balalaikas, bouzoukis, cimbalons,
mandolins or charangos. Such sounds over static or slowly changing
harmonies are not only to be heard in examples 4 (Exotic Flute, p. 55)
and 12 (El condor pasa, p. 56) but also in recordings by popular ‘ethnic’
artists like Gheorghe Zamfir on Les Flûtes Roumaines (1970), or on tracks
like Balada Sarpelui (1976b: violins only) and Doina din Arges (1976a: pi‐
ano and violin tremolandi, cimbalon swirls). The latter, originally con‐
ceived as a lament for the devastation of the 1970 Danube floods in
Romania, was also used later as the title theme for the BBC TV series
The Light of Experience (1976), which ambitiously covered the history of
59
human knowledge. Both inundated plains and the history of knowl‐
edge from time immemorial constitute large stretches and spaces of
space, time and thought. It’s therefore no surprise to find plains and
other large, empty, motionless spaces manifested in terms of static har‐
mony, often tinged with an ‘ethnic’ or exotic element providing dis‐
tance in time, culture and/or place, as in the film music extract In the
Mountains (ex. 13), or in such pieces as Borodin’s On the Steppes of Cen‐
tral Asia (ex. 14), ‘On the Prairie’ from Copland’s Billy The Kid Suite, (ex.
15), or as in practically any library music purporting to conjure up this
sort of connotative semantic field.5
Ex. 13. Friedhofer (1957): ‘In The Mountains’ from Boy On A Dolphin6
Ex. 14. Borodin (1880): On The Steppes Of Central Asia – opening
5.
6.
See tracks like Evolving Dawn and Stillness ( audionetwork.com), or Lonesome Travel‐
ler 2 and Spirit Of The Hills ( .unippm.com); see also the end of Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain. For more about stillness and open spaces in music, see Tagg (1982a, 1989, 2013: 420‐423). Try also searchword PANORAMIC in library music sites.
Cited in Dolan (1967: 108‐109).
60
Ex. 15. Copland (1941): ‘On The Open Prairie’ from ballet suite Billy The Kid
Ex. 16. Händel (1741): Pastoral Symphony from The Messiah
Ex. 17. Bruckner (1881): Symphony No.4 – opening ‘In der Wald’
Ex. 18. Beethoven (1808): Pastoral Symphony (opening)
Ex. 19. Schubert (1827): Der Leiermann. Rurality: ‘Drüben hinterm Dorfe steht ein
Leiermann’...‘Barfuß auf dem Eise wankt er hin und her’
Now, the static harmony under discussion here isn’t linked only to the
‘calm grandeur of nature’; it can also, in euroclassical contexts, be un‐
derstood in terms of a drone and of the drone as synecdoche for a ar‐
chaic folksiness and peasant simplicity which harmonic practices
among the artistocracy and merchant classes had supposedly super‐
seded. It’s in this way that Handel (ex. 16: shepherds, not city dwellers,
61
keeping watch over their flocks), Bruckner (ex. 17: alone in the woods),
Beethoven (ex. 18: cheerful on arrival in the countryside),7 Schubert (ex.
19: the village hurdy‐gurdy player) and Mahler (ex. 20: alone in the
timeless cool of sunset),9 not to mention Vaughan Williams (e.g. The
Lark Ascending, Fantasia on Greensleeves), all use drones or static har‐
mony in conjunction with either rural yesteryear, or with supposedly
timeless outdoor spaces,8 as in the Mahler example and as at the start of
Ives’s The Unanswered Question (ex. 21, p. 62), whose pianissimo sus‐
tained chords are described by the composer as connoting ‘the Silences
of the Druids Who Know, See and Hear Nothing’.
Ex. 20. Mahler (1912): ‘Der Abschied’ from Lied von der Erde.9
7.
8.
9.
‘Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande’.
See Rebscher (1981), Tagg (1982a).
Text translation: ‘the sun departs behind the mountains; evening descends in every valley, its shadows full of coolness’; source Hans Bethge’s Die chinesische Flöte, based on poems written during the Tang dynasty(618‐907).
62
Ex. 21. Ives (1908): The Unanswered Question. Opening bars.
Ethnic qualifiers
Sustained chords played in slow or senza misura time are often used in
film and television contexts to conjure up a mood of calm in large open
spaces,10 but they need to be combined with some sort of ‘ethnic’ mel‐
ody instrument if the folksy character of those large outdoor spaces is
to be established at the same time. This means that a very general sense
of calm rurality (nature as a meditative, recreative leisure resource) can
be particularised to various degrees. Such ethnic melody instrument
qualifiers as Fernando’s quenas are not only to be found in examples 14,
15 (continuation) and 17 but also in library music pieces like Saffron and
Green, Shannon Fen, Horizons Unlimited, Meadowsweet, Shepherd’s Song,
Folk Ballad II or Tema Medievale.11
The balance between melodic‐rhythmic profile and quasi‐static drone‐
like accompaniment is delicate in this sphere of musical connotation.
The rurality and calm of the first museme stack in Fernando (m1+m2a)
or in Mahler’s Abschied (ex. 20) is not as abstract as Hymas’s At Peace or
the opening of Ives’s The Unanswered Question (ex. 21). Nor is it as so‐
cially/musically ‘populated’ as the start of Beethoven’s Pastoral Sym‐
phony with its much quicker tempo, more affirmative rhythmic
10. For example, the start of Pink Floyd’s Shine On Crazy Diamond (from Wish You Were Here, 1974) has been used on Swedish TV to underscore the lonely wastes of the Norwegian‐Swedish border in a documentary called Över kölen and to underscore pictures of the sea, with plenty of horizon and huge nuclear submarines invisible in the depths, with a feeling of ominous eternity in a documentary about the stockpil‐
ing of nuclear weapons. Such calm in large open spaces does not have to be omi‐
nous, but it is usually lonely and frequently sad, as is shown in the discussion of nature as a mood music category (Tagg 1982a: passim; 2013: 420‐425).
11. Saffron and Green, Shannon Fen, Horizons Unlimited, and Meadowsweet are by Trevor Duncan on Boosey & Hawkes’ Recorded Music for Film, Radio and TV, SBH 2991. Shep‐
herd’s Song, Folk Ballad II or Tema Medievale (Santiseban) are in the CAM collection.
63
patterning, more regular periodicity and almost immediate crescendo
into a tutti statement of the main theme. That aspect of Beethoven’s pas‐
torality contains too many people (tutti) who are too lively (tempo,
rhythm and periodicity) and too close (dynamics) to qualify as pastoral
in the meditative ‘wide‐open‐spaces’ sense of the mood.12
It should also be clear that in considering the combination of m1a and
m1b we are dealing with an area of connotation which is far more pre‐
cise than just folksy, calm or outdoors. The exotic rural environment of
Fernando is not, for example, the wide open spaces of Eastern Europe or
Central Asia: we are not in Hungary with the slow molto rubato con
molto vibrato ed espressione portamenti and trills of ‘gypsy’ violinists in
the harmonic minor accompanied by cimbalon and piano swirls over
chords of the dominant minor ninth in the introduction to a csárdás, nor
are we in the Russian ethnic cultural sphere with accordions and bala‐
laikas rustling away in parallel thirds and with characteristic melodic
formulae like the melodic cadence, all in the minor key.
It’s less clear that we aren’t somewhere in the Mediterranean (as in ex‐
amples 3, 6, 7, 8), but the lack of phrygian cadences (ex. 3 and 6) and fla‐
menco style guitar probably rules out a stereotypical Spain, at least as
imagined in the popular music of Northern Europe and North Amer‐
ica. Naples and Venice are two other locations also suggested by the
presence of small string instruments played tremolando, for example
the mandolins in the library music piece Mare di Marcellina, annotated
as ‘Neapolitan band with hurdy‐gurdy and plectra, Neapolitan ally,
fishermen’);13 but the Italian mandolin, like the bouzouki of Greek pop‐
ular music, tends to play more melodically and less as chordal accom‐
paniment than the charangos of Fernando’s m1b. And neither mandolin
nor bouzouki are very likely to be played in a fourthless hexatonic
mode like that of Fernando’s flutes in bars 1‐6. 12. For more on the nature‐related subcategories ‘pastoral/calm’, ‘ethnic/national’, ‘bucolic/light action’, and about nature as a leisure resource, see Tagg 1982a.
13. Description of pieces in the Boosey & Hawkes Recorded Music Library.
64
Bars 1‐6 summary The combination of m1a and m1b can be summarised as connoting
large, open spaces in a (for Northern Europeans and North Americans)
far‐off, exotic rural region, probably in the Andes (Peru, Bolivia, Chile)
and perhaps something resembling the scene shown as figure 11. Fig. 11. Bolivian altiplano (photo: Manfred Schweda)
An individual (the melodic instrument)14 is thrown into a relief as a fig‐
ure against this background, adding a simple, human, folksy, honest
Naturvolk romantic aspect tinged with melancholy, as suggested rather
stereotypically in Figure 12 (p. 65). The generous reverb adds consider‐
ably to acoustically enlarge the impression of space15 and the whole
‘scene’ (sound ‘landscape painting’, complete with ethnic individual) is
faded in at the mixing console, coming into complete sonic ‘focus’ (nor‐
mal dB output level) at bar 6 — a sort of establishing shot in sound. 14. I’m assuming here the reader’s familiarity with analogies between the melody/
accompaniment dualism of most Western music and the figure/ground dualism of European visual art, as well as between these two on the one hand and the mono‐
centric individual/environment dualism of Western thought in general. For more about this, see Maróthy 1974: 22, ff., Tagg 2013: 425‐445).
15. See section on reverb and the urban soundscape in Tagg (1990 and 2013: 439‐441). See also anaphonic names given to reverb templates on studio effects units and syn‐
thesizers, e.g. (in ascending order of reverb time) ‘locker room’, ‘recital room’, ‘con‐
cert hall’, ‘cathedral’. For more about populated rural environments in music, see Tagg (1989) on big towns and small towns as musical mood categories.
65
Fig. 12. ‘Boy musician on mountain road’ (photo: Werner Bischof, 1954)
What happens next? m2: sunrise Lifting to lighter areas I’ve called museme 2 (b. 7‐9, 51‐53) SUNRISE because it so strongly re‐
sembles, both melodically and harmonically (though obviously not as
regards instrumentation and pitch range), the grandiose Sonnenaufgang
(= ‘sunrise’) passage found near the start of Richard Strauss’s tone poem
Also sprach Zarathustra (ex. 22).
Ex. 22. R. Strauss (1896): Also sprach Zarathustra — sunrise motif: full
symphony orchestra (reduced)
66
According to the philosophical novel by Nietzsche which provided the
programme for Strauss’s tone poem, Zarathustra, after ten years as a
hermit meditating in the wilderness, ‘arose one morning with the dawn
and, turning to the Sun, said “Thou tremendous Planet, where would
be thy happiness if thou hadst not those to whom thou givest light?”’16
Strauss expert R. Specht describes example 22 as ‘a nature mood in the
aspect of sunrise... The nature theme shines with increasing brightness
until the climax of sunrise is reached.’17
This music became widely known after its use in Kubrick’s 2001 (1968)
where it accompanied the visually spectacular ‘earthrise’, as seen from
the moon, and, more popularly, in the Dawn of Man segment of the
same film when, after aeons of fear and ignorance, it literally dawns on
the big ape that he can use a bone club instead of his bare hands to kill
large animals. After 2001 (1968), the Zarathustra sunrise music became
the most popular musical trope of grandiose opening in Western me‐
dia. It has been used —and parodied— in hundreds of different con‐
texts, for example to mark Elvis Presley’s grand entry on stage in Las
Vegas, or to underline the epic proportions of a monolith chocolate bar
in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), as well as to advertise a fabric
softener, office machinery and a spoof casino.18
There are also some important correspondences between m2 and the
sunrise of ex. 23 (key, crescendo, tempo, melody rising to the major 6th
and the octave). Indeed, waking up (e.g. the ‘ups’ and/or ‘outs’ of ‘Wa‐
chet auf’, ‘l’Éveil de la nature’,19 ‘et resurrexit’, ‘ascendit in cœlos’),20 get‐
16. ‘Als Zarathustra dreißig Jahre alt war, verließ er seine Heimat und den See seiner Heimat und ging in das Gebirge. Hier genoß er seines Geistes und seiner Einsam‐
keit und wurde dessen zehn Jahre nicht müde. Endlich aber verwandelte sich sein Herz — und eines Morgens stand er mit der Morgenröte auf, trat vor die Sonne hin und sprach zu ihr also: «Du großes Gestirn! Was wäre dein Gluck, wenn du nicht die hättest welchen du leuchtest!»’ (Nietzsche: Zarathustra’s Vorrede, introduction to pocket score of Also sprach Zarathustra, page ii). 17. ‘Eine Naturstimmung im Anblick des Sonnenaufgangs... das Naturthema strahlt in gewaltiger Steigerung immer leuchtender auf bis zum Höhepunkt des Sonnenauf‐
ganges’ (op. cit. p. iii).
18. See TV Tropes tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/AlsoSprachZarathustra [151130]. For analysis of the Strauss trope in popular culture see Leech (1999).
19. Ravel: Daphnis et Chloë. Note the distinction between réveil (alarm clock, sudden action and sound) and éveil (more gradual process).
67
Ex. 23. Haydn (1798): The Creation – sunrise, introduction to recitative
‘In Splendour Bright Is Rising Now The Sun’ (reduction)
ting up, etc. often seem to provoke a rise in musical pitch and volume,
at least according to the sense of ‘high’ and ‘low’ as understood the mu‐
sical tradition I belong to. However, a gradual rise to a high point from
which the process is not reversed (i.e. the initiated process does not
continue into its own descending motion) is equatable neither with
processes which both ascend/increase and descend/decrease, nor with
those which rise too suddenly. This means that parallels to m2 cannot
be found in the reveille leaps of the fanfare or ‘call to attention’ type,
nor with rising phrases that continue into a descending revocation of
the preceding ‘up‐and‐out’. Thus, while m2 is comparable to the sun‐
rise examples (22 and 23), to the waking of the soul in Haydn’s Seasons
(ex. 24) or to the ‘upwards in thy embrace’ idea in Schubert’s Ganymed
(‘aufwärts an deinen Busen’ in ex. 25), it cannot be considered in terms
of ‘sudden lift’ (ex. 26a) or ‘gradual rise and fall’ (ex. 26b).21 It may also
seem rash to call m2 ‘sunrise’, since only two of the four musical quota‐
tions relevant to this museme (ex. 22 and 23) actually have sunrise as an
explicit PMFC. Please note, therefore, that I’m using SUNRISE here as a
metaphorical mnemonic for this museme which, like a sunrise, pro‐
ceeds from low to high, from dark to light and from weak to strong.
20. i.e. the ανάβασις (anabasis = ascent, going upwards) of Affektenlehre, see Schmitz (1955: 176‐183), Bartel (1997: 179‐180).
21. For further discussion of unidirectional and bidirectional runs and their relation‐
ship to musical episodicity, see the Romeo & Juliet and A Streetcar named Desire chap‐
ters in Tagg & Clarida (2003).
68
Ex. 24. Haydn (1810): The Seasons – (nº 17: aria) ‘Welche Erhöhung für
die Sinne!’
Ex. 25. Schubert (1817): Ganymed — ‘aufwärts’
Ex. 26. Commutations for the ‘sunrise’ in Fernando: a) too sudden lift
b) gradual rise ‘cancelled’ by gradual fall
In this light (!) it’s worth comparing m2 to a passage from El Condor Pasa
(ex. 27). Ex. 27. Simon & Garfunkel (1970), Los Incas (1968): El Condor Pasa, B
section - quenas in thirds rising to subdominant major’
By the time Simon and Garfunkel get to that point in the track, the mu‐
sic has progressed from the static parlando rubato of the introduction
(ex. 12, p. 56) and low register in the minor key (Dm) during the first
eight bars of the verse to high register with parallel thirds on the tonic
and third of the subdominant relative major (B$), moving up to the
third and fifth (subdominant) and down to third and fifth over the tonic
relative major. This double process resembles the position of m2 in
Fernando. Moreover, in the Simon & Garfunkel version of El Condor
Pasa, the passage quoted (ex. 27) is firstly sung to words which also ex‐
press a ‘rise’ out of the melancholy of the A section (from ‘I’d rather be
a hammer than a nail’, etc.) to a semantically lighter, more cheerful
sphere (to ‘sailing away... like a swan’).
69
Due to the similarities already mentioned between El Condor Pasa and
Fernando in connection with m1 and to the continuation of these simi‐
larities as regards m2, it seems quite plausible to assume —bearing of
course in mind the unprecedented popular success of the Simon and
Garfunkel recording— that the process from m1 to m2 in Fernando may
act as a reminder of the same process in El Condor Pasa, both musically
and with its verbal connotations mentioned above, i.e. from static mel‐
ancholy to ‘rising out of’ that state. This parallel will not seem less rea‐
sonable if the reader bears in mind that the excerpt quoted as ex. 27 is
played for the second time by quena flutes in parallel thirds at a similar
pitch to that occupied by the flutes in the Fernando recordings. Finally,
this parallel substantiates the interpretation of Fernando’s specific ethnic
connotations, at least as far as the average Northern European or North
American listener is concerned.
m3: in paradisum m3a & m3b: paradise, angel harps and milksap
Poco staccato e leggiero arpeggio figures, played in Fernando by piano and
by what sounds like harp, flute or even pizzicato violins but is more
likely to be a synthesiser, are reminiscent of motifs from Fauré’s Req‐
uiem (ex. 28) accompanying angels who lead our souls into heaven.
Ex. 28. Fauré (1888): Requiem - ‘In Paradisum deducant te angeli’22
At the very end of Ein deutsches Requiem (ex. 29, p. 70) Brahms (1869)
uses rising harp arpeggios to accompany the arrival of the blessed
(Seelig) soul at its final destination in paradise.23 22. ‘In paradisum deducant te angeli’ = Angels will lead you away into paradise.
23. ‘Blessed are they that die in the Lord’ (Revelation, 14:13). 70
Ex. 29. Brahms (1869): Ein deutsches Requiem. Final bars
Ethereal arpeggios are also omnipresent in two well‐known Ave Maria
settings (ex. 30‐31) whose lyrics, imbued with pathos and devotion, be‐
seech the Madonna to send us ‘holy comfort’, protection and rest. Ex. 30. J S Bach (1722), arr. Gounod (1853): Ave Maria
Ex. 31. Schubert (1825): Ave Maria:
‘Jungfrau mild, erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen’, etc.
And it is with ‘sincere faith’ that Tosca, accompanied by angelic arpeg‐
gios (ex. 32), insists she has acted when relieving the misfortunes of
others, offering prayers to heaven, putting flowers on altars, donating
jewels to the Virgin’s mantle, etc.24
24. ‘…quante miserie conobbi aiutai… con fè sincera la mia preghiera ai santi tabernac‐
oli salì… con fè sincera diedi fiori agli altar… [e] gioielli della Madonna al manto’.
71
Ex. 32. Puccini (1900): ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Tosca
The ‘plink‐plonk’ or ‘clink‐clink‐clink’ pianisation of heavenly harps
occurs in much romantic keyboard music, as illustrated in the Sibelius
quote (ex. 33), swaying with a similarly ethereal I\vi harmonic shuttle
(b. 4‐5) to that found in Fauré’s musical notion of paradise.
Ex. 33. Sibelius (1903): Romance for Piano
72
In Hollywood film music, harps used in a similar fashion to that shown
in examples 28‐29 and 32 are also often associated with transcendence,
either in religious contexts or, as in ex. 34, in connection with a more
secular sort of sincerity, devotion and love. Ex. 34. Skinner (c.1940): Cue ‘The Man I Marry’, from The Irishman.
73
To give an idea of the sort of effect composer Frank Skinner (1950: 99)
was aiming at with the harp and strings of bars 7‐16 in example 34 (and
to see how this writing contrasts with the different moods both before
and after this passage), here’s the timing sheet corresponding to ex. 34.
0:00.0
0:01.5
0:03.5
0:08.5
0:09.3
0:12.0
0:14.5
0:17.3
0:21.3
1:02.3
1:12.0
Music starts after O’Toole’s line: ‘I’m sorry’. The look on his face denotes disappointment. Slowly Maureen lowers her head. She says: ‘I too’. O’Toole walks towards Maureen. Maureen starts to turn. She says: ‘Forgive me’... Maureen looks up at O’Toole and says: ‘Philip told me how it
happened’.
She pleads with him to be her friend and continue to help her
cause. Fade full out. Start to fade in... ...(new) dialogue starts ...end music.
The mood of this extract is reasonably clear. Its context in the film is
best grasped by remembering that O’Toole is the swashbuckling Irish
‘hero’ (helping the English against the French!) and Maureen the hero‐
ine (the ‘love interest’). They are together fighting for the same suppos‐
edly noble cause and are tragically but nobly in love. Skinner (1950: 99)
comments his scoring of this scene as follows:
At twelve seconds (0ʹ12ʺ), I would have to create a feeling of tragedy as
Maureen realized that she had hurt his feelings... At 0ʹ17.25ʺ she sof‐
tened her speech and at 0ʹ21.25ʺ I planned to employ the love theme in
a slightly different manner.
A comparison with other statements of the love theme in the film re‐
veals that tempo (here slower) and orchestral arrangement are the
clearest distinguishing marks. For Maureen’s pleading in ex. 34 and for
the ‘noble cause’ aspect of her relationship to O’Toole —no ‘sex’, ‘fun’
or ‘pining with desire or longing’ in this statement of the theme—,
Skinner has used ‘angel harps’ playing their ‘devotional’ rising broken
chords: the ‘angelic’ aspect of love is present instead. Bearing also in mind that similar fields of film‐musical connotation are
apparently produced by the slow‐moving arpeggiated common triads
on piano that permeate Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (1978) and that
74
these have been used time and time again to signal serious transcend‐
ence,25 it seems quite likely that Fernando musemes 3a (IN PARADISUM)
and 3b (ANGEL HARPS) might also relate to things heavenly, devotional,
religious and romantically beseeching, slightly ‘other‐worldly’, tran‐
scendental, angelic and pure.26 But those Fernando musemes are, as
we’ll see after some short structural comments, more connotatively
precise than that. Ex. 35. Fernando m3a and 3b arpeggios as I-vi-ii-V in A
As shown in example 35, Fernando musemes 3a and 3b first arpeggiate
the home key’s A major tonic (I) sonority (b. 1‐6, 9‐15), then the tonic
and subdominant relative minor triads (F#m = vi, Bm = ii), then the
dominant major triad (V) (b. 13‐38, 64‐76). A-F#m-Bm-E, is of course the
well‐known vamp chord sequence I-vi-ii-V in A, a progression virtu‐
ally identical to that heard in example 36 (p. 75) whose four chords, GEm-Am/c-D, constitute a I-vi-iiÌ-V progression in G. Now, a key‐spe‐
cific vamp sequence’s third chord can, as a simple triad, be either sub‐
dominant relative minor (ii) or subdominant major (IV).27 Example
36’s third chord (Am/c =iiÌ) illustrates this equivalence in one way: it’s a
simple subdominant relative minor triad (ii) but in first inversion (iiÌ)
i.e. not with the G major piece’s (a) but with its Ô (c) as bass note. An‐
other way of conceptualising the equivalence of ii and IV in a vamp is
to compare their tetrads, because ii7 and IVå contain the same notes. In
G, for example, ii7 is Am7, containing a c e g, while IVå is C6, contain‐
ing c e g a. It’s for these reasons that I-vi-ii-V and I-vi-IV-V will be
considered as the same basic key‐specific progression, and that the ex‐
pression ‘I-vi-ii/IV-V’ will act as shorthand for that equivalence.27 25. Of Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel Holden (2003) wrote: ‘it is fast becoming a movie sound‐
track cliché, … used to telegraph instant profundity by Tom Tykwer in Heaven and by Mike Nichols in… Wit.’ On the use of Pärt’s music in film, see Maimets‐Volt (2013). For films using Spiegel im Spiegel, see tagg.org/KMV/SpiegelSpiegelFilm.docx.
26. This interpretation is also borne out by the fact that Friedhofer’s harp (ex. 16, p. 60) starts its arpeggiations with a cut at 1:30 to a ‘monastery in view’.
27. For discussion of vamp and key‐clock progressions, see Tagg (2015: 262‐264, 270, 404‐412). NB. VI and II as vamp variants of vi and ii are not key‐specific.
75
Ex. 36. Tchaikovsky (1892): Start of the Pas-de-deux from
The Nutcracker (I-vi-ii3-V in G)28
The wide‐ranging I-vi-ii-V arpeggios of the Tosca aria (ex. 32: E$-Cmze$Fmze$-B$ze$) and the Nutcracker pas‐de‐deux (ex. 36), are, like examples
28‐31 and 33‐34, certainly linked to the beauty, transcendence or an im‐
aginary paradise, but they are both quicker, richer and more expansive
than Fernando’s m3a and m3b. That’s why discussion of their connota‐
tive precision needs to focus on IOCM featuring not only I-vi-ii/IV-V
progressions but also accompaniment figures that more closely resem‐
ble m3a and m3b than do those of examples 32 and 36. Given the
museme labels IN PARADISUM and ANGEL HARPS —based initially on
hunches—, the obvious repertoire to check for IOCM consists of all
those TEEN ANGEL songs from the ‘milksap’ period of anglophone pop
history.29 There’s no room here to quote from more than just a few tunes
(examples 37‐45) in this vast repertoire containing: 28. Па‐де‐дё: Танец принца Оршада и Феи Драже = Pas‐de‐deux: Dance of Prince Orgeat and the Sugar Plum Fairy, first two bars, from The Nutcracker Ballet Suite. Thanks to Kaire Maimets for drawing examples 32 and 36 to my attention. 29. Vamp progressions of the 1957‐1962 pop period in the USA can be heard as the har‐
monic epitome of what Jerry Lee Lewis is reported to have called ‘MILKSAP’ sung by ‘all those goddam Bobbies’ (Bobby Darin, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vee, Bobby Vinton and their soundalikes). I regret that I have neither Lewis’s original quote nor its source. My secondary source is Swedish Radio series, Rockens Roll, on the history of rock by Tommy Rander and Håkan Sandbladh (c.1974). It may well be that ‘milk‐
sap’ should be written ‘milksop’ but spoken with a North American accent [O+NMU3R]. Lewis was referring to the period in US pop history when Elvis Presley was in the army, Little Richard had turned religious and both Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry were in jail, in other words after the proto‐rockers but before the Beatles. It was the period of the high school hop, crew cuts, ‘clean America’, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, ‘shalalalala’, ‘doobie doobie doo’, etc.
76
• I-vi-ii/IV-V progressions (though over more regular periods than in Fernando);
• lyrics making frequent quasi‐religious references to ‘angels’, ‘prayer’, ‘devotion’, ‘true love’, etc;
• ‘angel harp’ arpeggio figures (like m3a and m3b), of the ‘innocent‐
and‐pure’ or ‘bell chime’ sort and mostly played on electric guitar (often with light dampening of each note), or else by ‘clink‐clink‐
clink’ piano,30 or on pizzicato strings.
It might also be advisable to restrict references to such common traits of
‘symphonies for the kids’31 from the late fifties and early sixties to just
a few songs such as: Tell Laura I Love Her (Ray Peterson, 1960); Come
Softly To Me (The Fleetwoods, 1959); Wait For Me (The Playmates, 1960);
Countin’ Teardrops (Emil Ford and the Checkmates, 1960); Judy (1958)
and Dream Lover (Bobby Darin, 1958, 1959); Nobody But You (Dee Clark,
1958); Diana and Lonely Boy (Paul Anka, 1957, 1959); Blue Angel (Roy Or‐
bison, 1960); Am I The Man? (Jackie Wilson, 1960). However, to give the
uninitiated reader some idea of the type of material under discussion,
there now follow ten (ex. 37‐46) quotes from other songs in the same
genre, all of which are accompanied in a similar manner to that de‐
scribed above. They all include I-vi-ii/IV-V harmonies with ‘pizzi‐
cato’, arpeggiato or piano ‘clink‐clink‐clink’ accompaniment and lyrics
containing notions like PRAYER, DEVOTION, HEAVEN, ANGEL, SINCERITY, IN‐
NOCENCE, YOUNG LOVE, etc. These traits are typical for not just the ten
next examples but also for countless other songs of their ilk.
Ex. 37. Sam Cooke (1959): Only Sixteen (I-vi-IV-V in A )
If you were only sixteen when Only Sixteen was first released, you’d be
twice sixteen (=32) in 1975 when Fernando was released. That’s old
enough to reminisce about what might have seemed like a more inno‐
30. See Stan Freeberg’s 1956 pastiche of The Great Pretender (Platters, 1955).
31. Expression used by Ahmet Ertegun (Atlantic) in interview for BBC radio’s The Story of Pop (1975).
77
cent time of life (‘too young to know’). It was also a time predating Ser‐
geant Pepper, prog rock and reggae, a time when pop tunes and their
harmonies all seemed simpler. Even teenage fear of romantic rejection
could be couched in simple verbal and harmonic terms accompanied
by sprightly arpeggiations, as in example 38.32
Ex. 38. Neil Sedaka (1959): Oh! Carol (I-vi-ii-V in B )
Now, if teenage love is as beautiful (‘I loved her so’ [ex. 37]) or cruel (‘I
will surely die’ [ex. 38]) as it appears to be inscrutable (‘Why must I be
a teenager in love?’ [ex. 39]), then only supernatural forces can be in‐
voked to intervene in matters of the heart (‘I ask the stars up above’ [ex.
39]; ‘my one and only prayer’ [ex. 40]; ‘I prayed to the Lord’ [ex. 41]; ‘I
pray that… he’ll be mine’ [ex. 42], etc.). No adult awareness here of per‐
sonal relationship dynamics: just a mystical belief system consisting of
STARS, SKY, ABOVE (ex. 39, 41), DREAMS (ex. 40), HEAVEN (ex. 41, 44) and,
most commonly, the loved one as ANGEL (ex. 41, 42, 43, 44, 46). The only
32. NB. The Oh! Carol bass line, identical to Fernando museme 10a (see p. 00, ff.).
78
mention of any social aspect of love is in terms of idealised heterosexual
monogamy (‘wedding ring’ [ex. 40]; ‘I want to marry you’ [ex. 45]).
Ex. 39. Dion and the Belmonts (1959): Teenager In Love (I-vi-IV-V in G)
Ex. 40. Conway Twitty (1958): Only Make Believe (I-vi-IV-V in C)
Ex. 41. Jack Scott (1958): My True Love (I-vi-IV-V in E)
Ex. 42. Shelley Faberes (1961): Johnny Angel (I-vi-ii/IV-V in C)
Ex. 43. The Crew Cuts (1955): Earth Angel (I-vi-IV-V in E )
Ex. 44. Rosie and the Originals (1960): Angel Baby (I-vi-IV-V in C)
Ex. 45. Paul and Paula (1962): Hey Paula! (I-vi-ii-V in G)
79
Ex. 46. Mark Dinning (1960): Teen Angel (I-vi-IV-I in C)
The long and short of the IOCM in the last ten examples (ex. 37‐46) is,
as demonstrated in The Milksap Montage video (Tagg, 2007b), that m3a
and m3b relate not only to, as suggested earlier, a semantic field involv‐
ing the heavenly, devotional, religious, romantically beseeching, other‐
worldly and transcendental, but to all those things seen through the
prism of idealised young love, angelic and innocent, all tinged with
nostalgic reminiscence of pop music produced in the USA for a teenage
market during the milksap years around 1960. It’s in other words little
wonder that Fernando musemes 3a and 3b occur in conjunction with the
song’s verses whose lyrics reminisce (‘I remember long ago’, ‘Do you
remember?’, etc.) about important experiences shared with another in‐
dividual (‘We were young and none of us prepared to die’, etc.). m3c: tiptoe bass
Finding IOCM for m3c was a tricky task: rising common‐triad arpeg‐
gios played leggiero e poco staccato on electric bass just don’t seem very
common in twentieth‐century popular repertoires, including the euro‐
classical, relevant to Fernando. True, the fact that none of those asked to
induce IOCM for this study mentioned music containing anything re‐
sembling m3c could have meant that the museme was unremarkable
and that it went unnoticed; but that it is highly unlikely since m3c is
easily perceptible in all three mixes of the tune. Now, rising common‐
triad arpeggios played on electric bass, do occur in reggae but no‐one
associated in that direction, presumably (i) because m3c doesn’t contain
the characteristic skipped downbeats of reggae bass lines (ex. 47); (ii)
because the rest of Fernando is devoid of other elements that could have
helped lead to a reggae identification of the museme.
Ex. 47. Reggae commutation of Fernando museme 3c over I and vi
80
One possible interpretation of m3c came from a student who called it
the ‘tiptoe bass’.33 Running with that kinetic anaphone as a hypothesis,
it seemed like a good idea to check for similarities in ‘tiptoe music’ for
stealth situations in animated film. I scoured Tom & Jerry cartoons for
segments containing cats on tiptoe creeping up on mice. I also checked
similar scenes in eighteen Tex Avery cartoons. Then I searched on line
for various combinations of TIPTOE, MUSIC, STEALTH, CREEP (UP), SNEAK
and PIZZICATO. That led to a few library music pieces and to games mu‐
sic tracks like Zelda: Spirit Tracks—Stealthy Music. Much of what I found
contained leggiero e staccato sounds (minimal decay —typically mid‐
range xylophone, marimba, woodwind, etc.), but although there was
some pizzicato, none of it came in the form of arpeggio patterns played
on a plucked string bass instrument —with one exception (ex. 48).
Ex. 48. A. L’Estrange (2010): Elfin Magic (bass line at start)
The Audio Network library music staff characterise this piece, with its
arpeggiated Gm\D$zÌ tritone shuttle, as ‘[m]agical, haunting vibes’…,
adding that it is ‘[i]nspired by the sound‐world of… Danny Elfman’, a
connection reinforced by the pun in the piece’s title about Elfman, elves
and Elfman’s famous association with the quirky Gothic horror‐com‐
edy whimsy of Tim Burton movies.34 It’s a semi‐comical stealth tiptoe
with a history going back through the themes for The Addams Family
(1964‐66) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955‐65, ex. 49), through silent
film Misterioso pieces in Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists
(Rapée, 1924)35 to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (ex. 50) and The Hall of the
Mountain King (Grieg, 1891).36 While these stealth pieces demonstrably
relate to tiptoe movement, they are, as suggested in figure 13 (p. 81), in‐
compatible with m3c in other ways.
33. ‘Question bass’ (frågebas) and ‘tiptoe bass’ (tåspetsbas) were epithets offered by stu‐
dents at SÄMUS (Särskild Ämnesutbildning i Musik), Piteå, in March 1980.
34. See The Danny Elfman Tim Burton 25th Anniversary Music Box (Elfman, 2011).
35. e.g. Misterioso n°1 (Otto Langey, p. 165), Misterioso infernale (Gaston Borch, p.169), Misterioso n°2 (Adolf Minot, p. 171) —all in Rapée (1924).
36. The Hall of the Mountain King, filed under ‘Sea storm’ in Rapée (1924: 51), was pre‐
sented as ‘tiptoe music’ on the BBC children’s TV channel: see CBeebies Melody, Series 1, Episode 15 ‘Tip Toe Troll’, 2014‐06‐29 G bbc.co.uk/programmes/p021vr30.
81
Ex. 49. Gounod (1872): Marche funèbre d’une marionette37
Ex. 50. Dukas (1897): L’apprenti sorcier
Fig. 13. Tiptoe differences: [a] burglar; [b] ballerinas en pointe
Differences between these two tiptoe images can be stereotypically
characterised as those between stealthy, dark, comical mystery (13a)
and light, bright, dainty but erotically tinged female innocence, grace
and beauty (13b).38 Musically, the burglar sneaking off with his swag is
more likely to be associated with examples 48‐50 —quirky, semi‐comi‐
cal stealth tiptoe— while the girls practising en pointe in a classical bal‐
let class more likely connect with examples 28, 30‐33, 36, and especially
example 51 (p. 82) —the shiny, light, long‐legged tiptoe. In fact, figure
13b distils the choreographical style of at least one online performance
of The Dance of the Hours (ex. 51) down to one freeze‐frame.39 37. Used as TV title theme for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (NBC, 1955‐65).
38. There’s no room here to discuss erotic aspects of classical ballet —foot fetishes, lengthened legs, Louis XIV’s high heels, (Caucasian) flesh‐coloured point shoes, horizontally flared micro skirts (tutus), anorexic ballerinas, narcissism, mirrored walls, the Paris Opera’s Corps de Ballet as a 19th‐century prostitution racket, etc. See instead, for example, Dancing for Degas ( K Wagner, 2010) and The Black Swan ( 2011: ‘the sadomasochism of an unnatural art form’); see also ftnt. 39 (p. 82).
82
Ex. 51. Ponchielli (1876): ‘Dance of the Hours’ from La gioconda.
The pizzicato figures in example 51 resemble Fernando’s tiptoe bass
(m3c) more closely than does any of the IOCM cited earlier. The resem‐
blance is threefold: [1] as with m3c, example 51’s rising arpeggios span
a pitch range of over one octave from bass to mid register; [2] example
51’s pizzicati, like the Fernando tiptoe bass, stop on each arpeggio’s top
note, leaving a hiatus ‘in the air’ before presenting another exclusively
upward gesture; [3] like m3c, the Dance of the Hours arpeggios are bro‐
ken chords on simple tertial functions (I = D and V7 = A7). It’s for these
reasons that m3c can be interpreted as much closer to the light, bright,
dainty type of tiptoe than to any other.
Examples 52 and 53 (p. 83) complete the IOCM for m3c. Their slow,
plucked, rising arpeggios (unidirectional in example 53), consisting of
simple broken chord patterns without accidentals, also bear considera‐
ble resemblance (though less than example 51) to the combined effects
of Fernando’s m3a, 3b and 3c. It should be noted that examples 52 and 53
both have religious associations. Mascagni has scribbled imitando la
preghiera (= imitating prayer) at the start of his manuscript of the Inter‐
mezzo which represents, in highly concentrated emotive form, time
spent in church away from the opera’s main activities of honour killing
and vendetta, while the Massenet Méditation, marked Andante religioso,
accompanies the heroine’s reflections about a dubious declaration of
‘pure’ love from a confused ascetic prelate. We are in other words back
in the metaphysical borderlands between this world and the ‘next’. In‐
deed, among the most frequently requested or recommended pieces of
euroclassical music for funerals —when the deceased is imagined as
‘passing on’ from this world into an ineffable beyond— you’ll find not
just Elgar’s Nimrod (1899) plus the Adagios by Albinoni (1708) and Bar‐
39. See, for example, the 2008 performance in Indianapolis by young ballerinas in tutus and point shoes ( gmBF1bOlKOA). A more famous performance of Dance of the Hours is by the daintily animated ostriches, long thin legs and body feathers shaped like tutus, in Disney’s Fantasia (1940). Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)— 3. Musemes 1-4
83
ber (1938) but also several of the ANGEL HARP and TIPTOE BASS pieces dis‐
cussed in this chapter. Those funeral favourites are: Mascagni’s
Intermezzo (ex. 52), Massenet’s Méditation (ex. 53), the ‘In paradisum’
from Fauré’s Requiem (ex. 28), the Ave Marias by Bach/Gounod and
Schubert (ex. 30‐31), the ‘Vissi d’arte’ aria from Puccini’s Tosca (ex. 32)
and, of course, Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel (p. 73).40, 41, 42 Ex. 52. Mascagni (1890): Cavalleria Rusticana — Intermezzo, b. 20-23
Ex. 53. Massenet (1894): Thaïs — Méditation, b. 3-6.
40. See: [1] ‘The top 75 funeral songs’ ( telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9969669/Topten-funeral-songs.html?frame=3351459); [2] ‘Funeral music – Classical music’ ( lastingpost.com/classical-funeral-music/); [3] ‘Dignity: caring funeral services’ ( dignityfunerals.co.uk/
funeral-services/arranging-a-funeral/meeting-your-needs/music/); [4] About the Pärt piece: ‘Tear Jerker: Classical Music’ ( tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TearJerker/ClassicalMusic) —’I want this played at my funeral’ ( soundcloud.com/anasinho-ii/arvo-p-rt-spiegel-im-spiegel). Or sim‐
ply search on line for |funeral music classical|. 41. Several of the seriously popular pieces cited as IOCM in this chapter are by euro‐
classical one‐hit wonders —Dukas, Mascagni, Massenet and Ponchielli. Delibes (1876) and his ‘Pizzicati’ from Sylvia could’ve been another. Are those composers remebered for anything other than their single ‘hits’? 42. For a discussion of Romantic piano arpeggiation, see the Dream of Olwen analysis in Ten Little Title Tunes (Tagg & Clarida, 2003: 231‐249). 84
This section on Fernando’s tiptoe bass would not be complete without
remarking how unusual it is to find a bass part in twentieth‐century,
anglophone, non‐reggae popular song which, with the obvious excep‐
tion of breaks and intros, does not sound constantly throughout the en‐
tire number. Indeed, in Fernando’s verses the bass line includes as much
silence (beats 3 and 4 in each bar) as sound (beats 1 and 2). These ‘top‐
of‐the‐arpeggio’ hiatuses make m3c diverge from the standard rock
practice of playing together with the bass drum all through the song —
bass drum, hi‐hat and cymbals are also notably absent from the verse;
instead, m3c is performed simultaneously with and has a similar leggi‐
ero arpeggio configuration as m3a and m3b (pp. 69‐79). Museme 3c also
contains the same straight quaver movements as m3a and, together
with m3a and m3b, it contrasts with the ‘bolero march’ snare drum idea
(m4) in verse 1. In short, m3c can be interpreted as underlining the light
(not dark, not heavy), positive, devotional, angelic, innocent, youthful,
religious, otherworldly, heavenly character of m3a and m3b.
m4: ‘bolero’ Ex. 54.
Museme 4 (m4) has a large number of variants in Fernando, one of
which (b. 12‐14) appears as example 54 (in 4/4). All variants of this pat‐
tern are played on snare drum in a tempo and mode of execution simi‐
lar to those heard throughout Ravel’s Boléro (ex. 55), even if that piece of
popular IOCM is entirely in 3/4.43 The Fernando snares are mixed at rel‐
atively low volume and panned left and right centre back, a stereo po‐
sition compatible with the ‘distant drums’ notion alluded to in the
lyrics at the start of verse 1, (‘Can you hear the drums, Fernando?’, b.
12‐13), just after m4 emerges from the song’s ‘sunrise’ (p. 65, ff.).
Ex. 55. Ravel (1928): Boléro snare pattern
The most obvious PMFC for Ravel’s Boléro, at least for non‐Hispano‐
phones like myself and most of my students, is SPAIN. Indeed, Ravel
43. At least, Boléro was the m4‐related IOCM most frequently mentioned by my popu‐
lar music analysis students in the 1980s and 1990s. 3/4 v. 4/4: see ftnt. 45 (p. 85) .
85
had been commissioned to orchestrate, for ballet purposes, a collection
of Spanish piano pieces with the Spanish title Iberia by Spanish com‐
poser Isaac Albéniz (1908). Now, since copyright issues prevented the
realisation of this project, Ravel had to write his own short Spanish‐
style ballet piece, which he called Fandango, a title that soon changed to
Boléro (Spanish bolero spelt à la française). For its première at the Paris
Opera in 1928, ballerinas/impressarios Ida Rubinstein and Bronisława
Niżyńska included the following passage in their programme notes. ‘Inside a tavern in Spain, people dance beneath the brass lamp hung
from the ceiling’… [The female dancer] leaps ‘on to the long table…
[H]er steps become more and more animated…’44 The original Spanish connotations of Ravel’s Boléro are in other words
clear enough and may well reinforce the Spanishness of Fernando’s
MAÑANA TURN (m1a), at least in the ears of non‐Hispanics who may be
unaware of differences between Spanish and Spanish‐American types
of bolero.45 That said, MORE AND MORE ANIMATED may be more crucial
than SPAIN in the semiotics of the Boléro snare drum. One reason is that
Ravel seems to have been more interested in what he called the piece’s
INSISTENT character than in its Spanishness. After all, the piece’s reiter‐
ated theme and the relentless looping of the short snare drum pattern
(ex. 55) are heard from start to finish. Boléro’s overall processual interest
derives from one long, single, unidirectional timbral, registral and dy‐
namic ‘increase’ that spans the entire piece. Put another way, film direc‐
tor Akira Kurosawa was hardly thinking of Spain when commissioning
Boléro‐like music for Rashōmon (1950), nor was Koji Kondo when re‐
cording his Boléro pastiche for a Zelda game (ex. 56). Ex. 56. Kiji Kondo (1998): ‘Bolero of Fire’ from The Legend of Zelda:
Ocarina of Time ( 炎のボレロ Honō no Borero)46
44. Cited in Wikipedia article Boléro, referring to Lee (2002: 329). 45. The Spanish bolero, in 3/4 like Ravel’s Boléro, is not the same as, for example, the Cuban bolero, in 2/4 (or 4/4), as in the bolero‐son (≈ rumba), bolero‐mambo, etc.
86
So, if not Spain, what is the connotative value of the Boléro snare drum
in these audiovisual productions from Japan? I’m unable to explain its
use in the Kurosawa movie47 but the Zelda Boléro music (ex. 56) is the
object of extensive online exegesis.
‘When played, this teleportation song transports Link to the Triforce
Pedestal in the center of the Death Mountain Crater, near the entrance
to the Fire Temple. This is the only way with which Link can get to the
central area of the crater as a child, where a patch of Soft Soil (and by
extent, a Gold Skulltula) can be found.’48 (sic) I have no idea what that means, but I suppose the Triforce Pedestal,
Death Mountain Crater and Fire Temple, not to mention teleportation
and reverting to a childhood state, are all quite momentous things.48 If
that supposition is not entirely erratic, I will, if I play the game, expect
to deal with superhuman forces over which I exert no control in reality.
I’m also guessing that Kondo’s Boléro pastiche (ex. 56) is there to help
me make some sort of kinetic or emotional sense of that aspect of the
Zelda fantasy world. But how would that work? Part of the explanation
comes from examples 57‐59. Ex. 57. Holst (1922) ‘Mars’ (opening) from The Planets
Example 57 shows a short excerpt from the start of Holst’s Planet Suite,
just enough to hear the first tritone (d$ in bar 5) and the insistent mili‐
tary rhythm beaten out on timpani and tapped out by col legno strings,
all in an asymmetric 5/4 march. The planet on musical display here is
zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Bolero_of_Fire [160125]. NB. Ravel’s and Kondo’s snare patterns are identical and their tempi very similar. 47. Instead see Wikipedia Boléro entry [160128] citing interview with Hayasaka Fumio who was in charge of music in several Kurosawa films, including Rashōmon.
48.
zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Bolero_of_Fire. This source also informed me that the Gold Skulltula embodies Evil in the shape of a huge spider. See also ‘The Legend Of Zelda ‐ Bolero of Fire’ at 5WSymBiYhqA [160128]. 46.
87
‘Mars, the Bringer of War’. There’s very little let‐up in the piece. Aside
| figure marches
from thirty‐odd bars in the middle, the | T implacably on to reach the irregularly repeated horror chords as
its final destination: total, violent destruction.49
Similar dissonant devices occur in the Imperial March from Star Wars
(a.k.a. ‘The Darth Vader Theme’) whose memorable hook is cited as ex‐
ample 58. It’s a more symmetrical version (4/4) of merciless military
evil, represented visually by the impregnable Death Star and by Darth
Vader in his ‘dark helmet’.50 Its musical representation lies in the
march’s ominously repeated shuttle Gm\E$m and in the relentless
rhythm of the tutti strings playing percussively, loud, preciso e marcato.
Ex. 58. John Williams (1977) ‘Imperial March’ from Star Wars
Tonally less ominous than Mars or Darth Vader but just as militaristi‐
cally persistent is the snare pattern in the ‘Conquest of Paradise’ theme
from 1492 (ex. 59). Viewing the film, we know that military might,
greed, ignorance, bigotry and disease will inevitably destroy ‘Paradise’
and its inhabitants, all in the name of God, king and country: the relent‐
less helps hammer home that inevitability. Ex. 59. Vangelis (1992): ‘Conquest of Paradise’ theme from 149251
49. The military 5/4 rhythm is present in bars 1‐37 and 96‐165 (just before the final hor‐
ror chords). It is absent between bars 65 and 95.
50. ‘Dark Helmet’ is the name of the comical Darth Vader character in Mel Brooks’s hilarious Star Wars parody Spaceballs (1987).
51. Vangelis uses the La folia chord progression throughout this piece. Is that to suggest 15th/16th‐century Europe? The words are all total nonsense in pseudo‐Latin. 88
Examples 57‐59 are all associated with overwhelmingly powerful, vio‐
lent, warlike and destructive forces of evil that are also merciless, re‐
lentless and unstoppable. While POWERFUL, UNSTOPPABLE or, at a pinch,
even RELENTLESS might be used to qualify Boléro‐type snare patterns in
general (Ravel mentioned INSISTENT), at least if performed by a large en‐
semble, the other adjectives are less appropriate. This difference is due
to a combination of tonal and timbral issues in examples 57 and 58,
more precisely the accentuated tritonal or semitonal sonorities (plus
the ‘horror’ chords, not shown) and the nonsense‐Latin lyrics of exam‐
ple 59, sung in unison by a full choir in a minor mode with churchlike
reverb to create an ‘O Fortuna’ sort of effect (Orff, 1936).52 Even if those
structural elements and their PMFCs are absent in the actual Boléro ex‐
amples (55‐56) and in Fernando’s m4, the snare drum figures are decid‐
edly present. This implies that INSISTENT, PERSISTENT, POWERFUL and
UNSTOPPABLE may be more relevant as connotative descriptors for Bol‐
éro‐type snare patterns in general. That would at least partially explain
how the pattern might work in the Zelda example (ex. 56), with its mi‐
nor and diminished triads along linked to all the ‘momentous things’ in
the game narrative. This line of reasoning is borne out by the following
observations about [i] the snare drum’s military uses and [ii] the intrin‐
sically propulsive character of Boléro‐style rhythm patterns on snare
drum (ex. 54‐56, 60), or played by other instruments (ex. 57 and 58). The snare drum’s military connection should need no explanation.
‘Gus’ Moeller, doyen of military drumming in the USA, put it like this:
‘[The snare drum] is essentially a military instrument… When a com‐
poser wants a martial effect, he instinctively turns to the drums.’53
The snare drum is a loud, easily portable instrument whose sound,
when played with sticks rather than brushes or the hand, has both body
(mid register) and, more notably, a strong, sharp, crisp attack that is re‐
52. ‘Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi’ —fate or fortune as the evil and fickle empress of the world— is the first, last and best‐known part of Orff’s Carmina Burana (1936). ‘O Fortuna’ has been used extensively in popular culture, e.g. [1] in Excalibur (1981), when King Arthur and his knights ride into battle (slaughter); [2] arranged by Trevor Jones in Last of the Mohicans (1992: more slaughter); [3] in Beowulf: Prince of the Geats (2007) as Beowulf discovers the holy sword with which to slay the Helldam (yet more slaughter). For other uses of this ubiquitous music, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Orff's_O_Fortuna_in_popular_culture [160129]. 53. Moeller (1925/1982) as cited in the Wikipedia entry ‘Snare drum’ [160129]. Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)— 3. Musemes 1-4
89
inforced and extended by the vibrating wires of the instrument’s snare
device. The fact that this sort of sound pierces ambient noise and can be
heard over some distance makes the snare drum ideal for military situ‐
ations where concerted, synchronised movement is the order of the
day, when troops need to move forward in an orderly manner, in the
same direction, at the same time, ‘as one man’ and, preferably, with a
common purpose, be it on parade or marching into battle. Forwards movement is intrinsic to the snare drum and snare‐drum‐like
rhythms under discussion. Now, in military marches, feet will usually
hit the ground at somewhere between 112 and 124 bpm, 120 being typ‐
ical for a brisk march. While the bass drum in a marching band is usu‐
ally struck on every or every other footstep —|
| or |
|
(once every half second or second in at =120)—, snare drum patterns
run at a higher surface rate, e.g. |
|. This means the
time between notes or groups of notes played on snare drum is shorter
and that it normally varies from a minimum of one note per footstep
( = two per second at 120 bpm) through two ( ), three ( T ) and four
(
) to six notes per footstep (ex. 58) and faster. The point is that feet
tend to hit the ground on the regularly recurring longer notes and that
synchronisation of those steps will be more exact if they are immedi‐
ately preceded by shorter notes. Put simply, “|
* ” moves
forward more convincingly into * than does “|
| * ”, but
“
* ” does so with even greater propulsion.
So far, then, the Boléro‐like patterns just discussed seem to relate not so
much to Spain (although that’s also possible) as to the military and to
forces, literal or metaphorical, marching with determination towards a
common goal. Now, moving forward in the same direction at the same
time ‘as one man’ certainly fulfils an important function in the military,
but it’s also relevant to sports events where physical prowess (includ‐
ing force) and concerted effort (energy, synchrony and coordination)
are, as in battle, essential to success (victory) and where an impressive
public display of strength and order, as in a parade, can be an essential
aesthetic ingredient. Indeed, that seems to be a likely reason for the
striking similarities between music for sports and for the military.54 54. For more on sports music, incl. military crossovers, see Tagg & Clarida (2003: 410‐
417, 426, 428, 475, ff.. 605‐606, 624). 90
Ex. 60. John Williams (1984) Olympic Fanfare and Theme (snare at 0:50)
Example 60 (p. 90), with the repeated smattering of its snare drum fig‐
ures, serves to illustrate the sort of structural and semiotic convergence
just mentioned. And it’s not just team sports that rely on the sort of
dogged effort, energy and coordination with which this kind of snare‐
drum pattern is associated. It applies just as much to individual ath‐
letes55 and, more importantly, to cohorts of partisan spectators, many of
whom seem to experience a quasi‐religious sense of belonging and
common purpose that they share with each other and project on to
whoever they’re cheering for. Among musical expressions of this kind
of quasi‐tribal behaviour is the use of Vangelis’s Conquest of Paradise
(1992; ex. 59, p. 87) before home matches of teams like the Widnes Vi‐
kings, the Wigan Warriors (UK rugby league) and Sheffield Wednesday
(English football league).56, 57, 58 But do all these powerful mass‐event
uses of Boléro‐like rhythms (ex. 57‐60) really have anything to do with
Fernando’s m4? The answer is both yes and no: YES, because of obvious rhythmic simi‐
larity between, say, | (Fernando, b. 14), |
(Vangelis, ex. 59) and | (Williams, ex. 60); and NO, be‐
cause of at least three other factors. [1] m4 is placed towards the back of
the mix (and of the listener’s head), not loud and ‘up front’. [2] m4 is not
part of a large‐scale symphonic, military‐band or electronic texture; [3]
Fernando’s main foreground (melodic) figure is carried by neither pow‐
erful brass (ex. 57‐58, 60), nor by a large unison choir à la Carmina
Burana (ex. 59) but by a single lead vocalist. It’s for these structural rea‐
55.
56.
57.
58.
See KPM producer Ron Singer’s comments on this issue in Tagg (1980: 7).
For more see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquest_of_Paradise_%28song%29 [160128].
By football is meant a team sport in which feet, not hands, are important.
Even the music for Danny Boyle’s humanistically patriotic opening ceremony for the London Olympics (Underworld, 2012) contains an everlasting forward‐driving drum pattern of a similar type —
. Check also the world cup chant South Africa: Calling You (constant ) at audionetwork.com/browse/m/track/calling-you_63586?category=23601nswiuh [160130]. Try also the constant of the gradiose library music piece Kirov at audionetwork.com/browse/
m/track/apocalypse_3976?category=23296 [160130]. Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)— 3. Musemes 1-4
91
sons that m4 is unlikely to connect with troops parading at a tattoo or
marching into a pitched battle, or with Olympic ceremonies, or with
hordes of tribal fans in a football stadium: m4 cannot reasonably make
such paramusical connections when it is blended, as in Fernando bars 8‐
15 (pp. 23‐24), into a calm, tonally static texture whose other ongoing
ingredients (m1 and m3) relate, as I’ve argued (pp. 53‐65, 69‐84), to
stillness and open spaces, to heaven, to angels, to devotion and tran‐
scendence. That’s why it may be wise to consider m4 in relation to Bol‐
éro‐type rhythms in smaller‐scale productions featuring a single lead
vocalist (ex. 61‐64).
Ex. 61. Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler (1966): Ballad Of The Green Berets
Example 61
Ex. 62. Gilbert Bécaud (1961): Et maintenant
92
Ex. 63. Roy Orbison (1961b): Running Scared
Ex. 64. Roy Orbison (1964): It’s Over (last 3 bars)
Similar snare effects also abound in military‐style pop ballads like Staff
Sergeant Barry Sadler’s lump‐in‐the‐throat rendition of an infamous
piece of Vietnam war falsification entitled The Ballad of the Green Berets.
Similar rhythm patterns can also be heard in a special type of dramatic
and fateful love song performed in slow alla marcia time. We are refer‐
ring here to big ballads like Gilbert Bécaud’s Et Maintenant, as well as to
Roy Orbison’s It’s Over and Running Scared (ex. 65). Bécaud is wonder‐
ing where to go and what to do now that his love has definitely left (‘Et
maintenant, que vais‐je faire?’), while Orbison, apart from running
scared, is inexorably left alone with ‘silent days and silent tears’ now
that ‘It’s Over’.59 Ex. 65. Boléro-type figures in dramatic love ballads — (a) Et maintenant
(Gilbert Bécaud, 1961); (b) Running Scared and (c) It’s Over (Roy
Orbison, 1960 and 1964)60
All this means that we might expect m4 to connote something Hispanic
(the Boléro connection), something military (like the Green Beret snares),
59. It is worth noting that the English translation of ‘Et maintenant, que vais‐je faire?’ runs ‘What now, my love, now that it’s over?’ We are unlikely ever to know if the late Roy Orbison was influenced by Et maintenant or its English translation when writing It’s Over. Tagg: Fernando the Flute (IV)— 3. Musemes 1-4
93
something scary (Running Scared) and something dramatic, fateful and
inexorable (the relentless, heavy, onbeat, funeral drum patterns signal‐
ling ‘everything is lost now that she’s gone’ in Et maintenant and It’s
Over). Conveniently enough, Fernando‘s lyrics have it all: Hispanic
(‘Fernando’, ‘Rio Grande’), military (‘bugle calls’, ‘guns, cannons’, ‘ri‐
fle’, ‘fight for freedom’), scary (‘I was so afraid’, ‘made me cry’) and in‐
exorably fateful (‘eternally’, ‘prepared to die’, ‘never thought we could
lose’, ‘fateful night’).
m5: legato sincerity
m5a: appoggiature
Museme 5a occurs mostly in the vocal part, often in parallel thirds. It is
also heard in the Interlude on flauti dolci. C.P.E. Bach (1794:87) describes
appoggiature (Vorschläge) as ‘the most essential embellishments’, ex‐
plaining the matter as follows.
They enhance harmony as well as melody. They heighten the attractive‐
ness of the latter by joining notes smoothly together and, in the case of
notes which might prove disagreeable because of their length, by short‐
ening them while filling the ear with sound. At the same time they pro‐
long others by occasionally repeating a preceding tone, and musical
experience attests to the agreeableness of well‐contrived repetitions.
Without going into further detail about the expressive character of Vor‐
schläge,61 we shall make the generalisation that appoggiatura strings
like those of m5a — i.e. grace notes performed as onbeat suspensions
resolving on to offbeat consonances or as onbeat consonances leading
into anticipated onbeat dissonances, as notes of equal duration and in
consecutive ascending or descending scalar order — have, in Baroque
and Viennese classical music, when played andante, lento or moderato,
the tendency to heighten the emotional expressiveness of the melodic
60. As with Fernando’s m4, these are generic renderings of rhythm patterns that vary slightly during each performance or recording. As in his In Dreams (1963), Orbison uses non‐recursive diataxis in Running Scared to underline the unstoppable move‐
ment of destiny (final chord and melodic climax).
61. On Vorschläge and musical rhetorics, see Schmitz, 1955: 176‐183.
94
phrase.62 This claim will seem less unreasonable if we make some hy‐
pothetical substitutions (HSs). Let us change the suspended grace notes
at the start of the well‐known aria ‘Che farò senza Euridice’ from
Gluck’s Orfeo e Euridice (ex. 66) into straight consonances (ex. 67). This
‘de‐appoggiaturation = de‐emotionalisation’ effect is even more notice‐
able in the Handel example and its HS (ex. 68a, b).
Ex. 66. Gluck (1762/1744): Orfeo e Euridice. Aria ‘Che farò senza Euridice’
Ex. 67. Hypothetical Substitution on Ex. 66 - no appoggiature
Ex. 68. Handel (1741): ‘He Was Despised’ from The Messiah; a) original,
b) without appoggiature.
There should be no need for further quotes and commutations of Ba‐
roque and Rococo music to illustrate this point. However, the uncon‐
vinced reader may test the theory by ‘de‐appoggiaturising’ the
following passages:
1. Bach’s Matthew Passion
a) the soprano aria ‘Wie wohl mein Herz in Tränen schwinnt’ (oboes d’amore appoggiature in parallel thirds)
b) the duet ‘So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen’ (flute obligato appoggia‐
ture in parallel thirds, see especially at ‘Schmerzen’)
c) the alto aria ‘Lebet, sterbet, ruhet hier’ (two oboi da caccia obligati and at the words ‘bleibet in Jesu Armen’)
d) the final chorus ‘Wir setzen uns’ at the words ‘mit Tränen nieder’, ‘Ruhe sanfte’, ‘soll dem ängstlichen Gewissen ein bequemes Ruhek‐
issen und der Seelen Ruhstatt sein’, ‘höchst vergnügt’... ‘schum‐
mern da die Augen ein’, etc., etc.
2. Bach’s John Passion at the words ‘Es ist vollbracht’.
62. The C.P.E. Bach quote bears this out to a certain extent. See also Bernstein 1976: 135‐
140.
95
3. Gluck’s Orfeo e Euridice, in Orpheus’s well‐known aria ‘What is Life Without Thee?’ (Che farò senza Euridice?, ex. 66), also at the words ‘Ah! Have Pity!’ and ‘the world has never known such grief’.
4. Lully’s Amadis, the aria ‘Bois épais’ at the word ‘silence’.
This list could have been made much longer, but it is suggested that the
references offered here should suffice to establish the general tenet that
appoggiature tend to increase the grace, pathos and general expressive
content of a melodic line in Baroque and Rococo music, especially if
played or sung in parallel thirds or sixths so that double suspensions
are constantly being created and resolved.
Such appoggiature are stock‐in‐trade of the Viennese classical idiom.
We do not intend to quote any examples to prove this rather obvious
point, referring suspicious readers to Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik
(K.525) first movement, bars 6‐8, 12‐18 (and their frequent reprises),
2nd movement, bars 2‐3 (and their reprises), not to mention the same
composer’s highly popular Piano Concerto no.21 in C (K.467), 2nd
movement (the Elvira Madigan theme), bars 17‐21 et passim. Readers
sceptical about our view of the affective function of appoggiature
should ‘de‐appoggiaturise’ these Mozart references. If you find the ex‐
pressive value of those passages to be the same with as without the ap‐
poggiature, you are right and this account is wrong!
It is interesting to note that no similar strings of appoggiature were
found in our IOCM from the nineteenth century. This may well be due
to changes in the norms of dissonance treatment in the transition from
Viennese classicism, where suspensions do not tend to be longer than
their resolutions (unless in feminine endings, etc.), to romanticism,
where suspensions seem to acquire an inherent affective value and are
frequently longer than their resolutions. In fact, the latest references in
the classical repertoire part of our IOCM are to Beethoven (ex. 69) and
Schubert (ex. 70), i.e. in the breaking point between Viennese classicism
and the Romantic era. Though similar in their treatment of appoggia‐
ture, their connotations are rather different, the Beethoven example be‐
ing the start of a sonata (a.k.a. The Ghost Sonata) while the Schubert
quote is ‘To be sung on the water’.
96
Ex. 69. Beethoven (1802): Piano Sonata Op.31, no.2
Ex. 70. Schubert (1823): Auf dem Wasser zu singen.
Moreover, unlike earlier references, examples 69 and 70 are to be
played in a much faster tempo that m5a and they cannot be considered
to the same extent so directly relevant to the discussion of affective
meaning in the Fernando museme m5a, however tempting it may be to
include the VVA of ex. 70 in this discussion (the boat swaying, accord‐
ing to the lyrics, like a gliding swan and the soul floating in the joy of
gently glittering waves).
Although no strings of appoggiature like m5a were found in the late
19th century part of our IOCM, they do occur in popular music, in op‐
eretta, in sentimental ballads, songs from musicals, evergreens, even in
Country and Western (e.g. Tulips From Amsterdam, Claribel’s I Cannot
Sing The Old Songs, The Cascades’ Rhythm Of The Rain, Claes‐Göran
Hedenström’s Det börjar likna kärlek banne mej).63 In Merle Haggard’s The
Fighting Side Of Me (ex. 71), we find strings of appoggiature underlining
the pathos with which the renowned Country music troubadour pleads
for the resurrection of a reactionary, Confederate, pro‐Vietnam‐war
view of US patriotism. Haggard’s patriotic pathos takes a comic turn
when his pleading appoggiature are replaced by on‐beat consonances
(ex. 72). Similar commutations applied to the other references will sub‐
stantiate this observation.
63. Det börjar likna kärlek banne mej, with music by Roger Wallis, means ‘It’s starting to feel like love, damn it!’
97
Ex. 71. Merle Haggard: You’re Walking On The Fighting Of Me
Ex. 72. Hypothetical Substitution on ex. 71 - no appoggiature
If we found no appoggiature in the late romantic part of our IOCM,
their presence turned out to be just as infrequent in the African‐Ameri‐
can department. This seems to imply that m5a is a genre‐determinable
idiom with parallels in the pre‐romantic classical tradition and in pop‐
ular ballads of the non‐African‐American type. Bearing also in mind
that m5a is often sung or played in parallel thirds (or sixths) over stand‐
ard tertial (‘functional’) harmonies — an idiomatic trait in Mediterra‐
nean and Latin American popular song — we may now be more
explicit about its affective message. Since Fernando received extensive
airplay in North‐Western Europe and North America in top‐forty or
middle‐of‐the‐road programme formats whose target groups had mu‐
sical tastes and socio‐musical group identification towards pop, rock,
disco, etc., the inclusion of appoggiature in Fernando may also be inter‐
preted as connoting areas of affect outside the contemporary or imme‐
diate terms of listener reference in that part of the world. Thus,
98
associations would be more likely to go towards notions of ‘deep feel‐
ing’ and ‘great sentiment’ (popular ballads in European or Euro‐Amer‐
ican genre), the Latin sphere of influence (as viewed from the North‐
West European / North American ‘metropolis’) and to popular arche‐
typal notions of ‘Olde Worlde temperament’ and to ‘graceful’ music of
‘class’ (use of appoggiature in Baroque and Viennese classicism).64
m5b: string filler
This violin filler has a similar appoggiatura character to m5a and the
use of legato string obligati or fillers in popular song is also extremely
common in connection with ‘love’, ‘deep feelings’, etc. as a general field
of affective association. The equation ‘melodic legato strings = love’ is
so well established in film music, television and mood music that fur‐
ther explanation of the phenomenon seems superfluous.65
64. Appoggiature do not occur in rock music. Their absence there makes their presence in a pop tune like Fernando all the more conspicuous as referring to genres where they do occur. For general account of rock and classics, see Schuler 1978.
65. Almost all Hollywood love scenes between 1927 and 1960 sport sumptuous legato string scoring. Here are a few examples: Driscoll and Anne kissing on the boat in King Kong (Steiner 1933); Olivia de Haviland’s and Errol Flynn’s romance in Captain Blood (Korngold 1935); Robin and Maid Marion planning their future together in The Adventures of Robin Hood (Korngold 1938); John Wayne proposing to Miss Dallas in Stagecoach (Hageman 1939); Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in Now Voyager (Steiner 1942); Barbara Stanwyck as femme fatale Mrs Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (Róz‐
sa 1944); luscious Laura (Raksin, 1944); the G.I. and the Geisha in Sayonara (North 1957); Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky 1869 or Rota 1968). Most of these examples are on Fifty Years of Film and Fifty Years of Film Music.

Analysis of musemes 1-4

Transcription

Similar documents

fernando y zaranda - Iberostarchef on Tour

SI ME MIRAN TUS OJOS

Jetovator - Jet Pack Adventures

Marquart MA-s `Charger`

(Español) Alquiler Residencial San Fernando Media Luna Ref

HOWTOONS The Turkey Baster Flute

telheiras housing

Rollerboard Brochure - Tisdale Converting, LLC

Slides from Fernandos`s keynote

Two Locations: Our Lady of Lourdes, Northridge Incarnation Parish