See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/250965094

Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann

Article  in  Notes · January 2000

DOI: 10.1353/not.2000.0039

CITATIONS READS
4 286

1 author:

Eric Mckee
Pennsylvania State University
13 PUBLICATIONS   34 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Eric Mckee on 03 November 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

)DQWDV\3LHFHV0HWULFDO'LVVRQDQFHLQWKH0XVLFRI
5REHUW6FKXPDQQUHYLHZ
Eric McKee

Notes, Volume 57, Number 1, September 2000, pp. 97-99 (Article)

3XEOLVKHGE\0XVLF/LEUDU\$VVRFLDWLRQ
DOI: 10.1353/not.2000.0039

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/not/summary/v057/57.1mckee.html

Access provided by Penn State Univ Libraries (12 Mar 2015 14:41 GMT)
Book Reviews 97

Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann.

By Harald Krebs. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. [xii, 290 p.
ISBN 0-19-511623-2. $65.]
Harald Krebs has spent a good deal of metrical conflicts both at the musical sur-
his professional life in the company of face and at deeper layers.
Robert Schumann, and his new book is a Upon skimming through this imaginative
celebration of that relationship. The intel- book, one might conclude that Krebs has
lectual motivation behind Krebs’s book, lingered too long in the company of
however, is not so much Schumann the Schumann. Much as people often take on
composer but analytical method. Krebs has certain characteristics of loved ones (fam-
developed a powerful theoretical tool de- ily, friends, pets), Krebs the author takes on
signed to interpret various kinds of rhyth- the persona of Schumann the critic. Imagi-
mic and metrical conflicts. This tool is valu- nary voices crowd the pages of Krebs’s book
able because it is effective for interpreting as his notions concerning rhythm and me-
not only the music of Schumann, but any ter are kicked about and mulled over by
work in which one perceives meter. That those vigilant defenders of musical
said, Krebs probably would not have been progress, Schumann’s Society of Davidites.
able to refine his theory to such a high de- In the opening chapter, set in mid-
gree had it not been for Schumann’s mu- January 1854, we find Florestan and Euse-
sic. Schumann, perhaps more than any bius wandering through the imaginary
other composer of the nineteenth century, town of Euphoria (an invention of Hector
wrote music that bristles with rhythmic and Berlioz). The residents of one part of this
98 Notes, September 2000

town—the rhythmic quarter (an invention meticulous research; an important feature

of Krebs)—have devoted themselves to the of Krebs’s method is that it is historically
study and performance of rhythm. Guided based in nineteenth-century sources.
by Hector (Berlioz), Florestan and Euse- Following Fétis, Moritz Hauptmann, and
bius make the acquaintance of François- Riemann, Krebs defines meter as the inter-
Joseph Fétis and Hugo Riemann. On their action of at least two layers of approxi-
way back home by carriage, a “prophet mately equidistant pulses, in which pulses
bird” gives them a treatise from the future. on the higher layer subsume a constant
(Although the author is unnamed, it is number of pulses on the lower. The meter
clear that the treatise is intended to be the of a musical work is the union and dynamic
passive “voice” of Krebs.) Through the re- interaction of all layers of pulses active
mainder of the book, Florestan and within it. Krebs further refines his concept
Eusebius read and discuss the contents of of meter by focusing on the interaction of
the treatise. In the final chapter, set inside three contextually defined metrical layers:
a chamber within the Endenich lunatic asy- the micropulse, pulse, and interpretive lay-
lum, we find Eusebius reading the last ers. The generating layer is that of the
pages of the treatise to Florestan, who by pulse, which Krebs defines as “the most
now has only fleeting moments of lucidity. quickly moving pervasive series of pulses,
The prophet bird returns and takes the generally arising from a more or less con-
manuscript back to its author. stant series of attacks on the musical sur-
Krebs’s book thus operates on several face” (p. 23). These pulses are grouped by
narrative levels, all of which create interest- listeners into larger units at the interpretive
ing possibilities for presenting material: a layer. This layer corresponds to what Fred
formal approach is maintained in the text Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff refer to as the
of the treatise, while the Davidites chatter “tactus” (A Generative Theory of Tonal Music
away in a colloquial tongue; primary source [Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983], 21) and
material is presented through the authori- what Joel Lester calls the “primary metric
tative (if imaginary) voices of the original layer” (The Rhythms of Tonal Music [Carbon-
authors; and Florestan and Eusebius dis- dale: Southern Illinois University Press,
cuss the merits of various interpretations of 1986], 50). Still larger layers are also re-
their music, comment upon the creative ferred to as interpretive layers. All interpre-
genesis of their works as evidenced by tive layers, however—and this is an impor-
sketches, and cite a dizzying number of ex- tant feature of Krebs’s approach—are
amples from their own works in support of defined by the same pulse layer, the one di-
theoretical points made in the treatise— rectly below the tactus. Finally, the pulse
one cannot imagine better second readers! layer may be intermittently subdivided into
And throughout it all is the narrative micropulses. Krebs’s primary focus is on
thread of Schumann’s progressing mental rhythmic and metric phenomena at and
illness and eventual death. immediately around the notated meter.
Such an unusual format for presenting Locating the metaphor of metrical disso-
one’s theory, however historically based in nance historically in the writings of Berlioz,
Schumann’s own critical-literary approach Krebs postulates two categories of the phe-
and that of others of his time (i.e., Jean nomenon. The first entails change from one
Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann), might mean metrical state to another, as occurs, for ex-
professional suicide for a young scholar. ample, in a passage that moves from 34 to 32.
But for Krebs, who over the years has estab- The second results when two simultaneous
lished himself as an authority on meter and layers group the underlying pulse layer in
rhythm through conference papers and conflicting ways. These dissonant states, as
published articles, one must not hasten to Krebs points out, are the central concern of
judgment. Krebs has earned the right to try the book. There are two basic types of such
something adventurous, be it a little odd. layered dissonances: (1) two layers share
And to appreciate Krebs’s book and judge the same downbeat but group pulses in
it fairly, one must check one’s conventional arithmetically incommensurate ways, as
sensibilities at the door and enter Krebs’s may occur in 34 meter when the eighth note
fantasy world without bias. layer is simultaneously grouped into twos
While the Davidites are fictive, what and threes; (2) two layers group the under-
comes out of their mouths is based on lying pulses in arithmetically commensu-
Book Reviews 99

rate ways, but their downbeats or points of sometimes referred to as a “shadow meter”
initiation are not aligned. This may occur (a term coined by Frank Samarotto), has
in 44 time when a consistent accentual pat- received attention in recent literature
tern suggests points of initiation on the (Roger Kamien, “Conflicting Metrical
third notated beat of the measure. After Patterns in Accompaniment and Melody in
clarifying the nature of metrical dissonance Works by Mozart and Beethoven: A Pre-
as a musical state, Krebs goes on to identify liminary Study,” Journal of Music Theory 37,
a host of musical processes involving chang- no. 2 [1993]: 311–50; William Rothstein,
ing states of metrical dissonances. “Beethoven with and without ‘Kunstge-
One concern I have with Krebs’s method präng’: Metrical Ambiguity Reconsidered,”
is that in the exposition of his theory in Beethoven Forum 4, ed. Lewis Lockwood
(chap. 2) the metrical or rhythmic status of and James Webster [Lincoln: University of
conflicting layers is left largely undefined. Nebraska Press, 1995], 165–93; Frank
And although his labeling system provides Samarotto, “Strange Dimensions: Regu-
much information, it is neutral in regard to larity and Irregularity in Deep Levels of
the metrical status of accentual patterns— Rhythmic Reduction,” in Schenker Studies 2,
that is, it does not interpret accentual pat- ed. Carl Schachter and Hedi Siegel [New
terns in terms of strong and weak beats. York: Cambridge University Press, 1999],
There is a range of possible interpretations 222–38). The distinction between non-
that can be reduced to two types: a conflict- metrical and metrical accentual patterns is,
ing layer can be heard as a rhythmic or as a I believe, important in how we conceptual-
metrical dissonance. By rhythmic disso- ize metrical dissonances, how we listen to
nance I mean an accentual pattern that them, and how we perform them.
does not support the prevailing meter, but With such a refined method, Krebs is
at the same time does not suggest a com- able to provide interpretations of very sub-
peting metrical layer. Rhythmic disso- tle and often very complex passages. He is
nances, in this view, are dependent upon most engaging when he casts a wider ana-
(1) a well-established meter and (2) main- lytical net and considers the role of metri-
taining that meter in the face of conflicting cal dissonance in relation to form, expres-
accentual cues. We hear such accentual sion, and style. Using the author’s own
patterns as rhythmic phenomena that have system but weighting different musical as-
no metrical status of their own. The synco- pects differently, I often arrive at different
pated strings in the opening of Mozart’s interpretations; this is not a drawback but a
Piano Concerto in D Minor, K. 467, are an positive attribute of the system. Krebs’s
example of this type. If a conflicting accen- book is bound to become a standard refer-
tual pattern is strong enough, however, and ence in studies of rhythm and meter.
continues long enough, it is possible (in
some cases) for it to be perceived as a met- Eric McKee
rically independent layer. This second type, Pennsylvania State University

View publication stats