INTERACTIONS BETWEEN METER AND OTHER MUSICAL PARAMETERS IN WORKS BY BEETHOVEN AND SCHUMANN

Abstract

This document explores ways that meter cooperates with various other musical domains. I will uncover relationships among meter, harmony, and form in Schumann’s Novellette in D major, Op. 21, No. 4, and between meter and motive in Beethoven’s String Quartet in C Minor, Op. 18, No. 4, first movement. As an entrée to these case studies, my first chapter enumerates scholars who have pursued a multivalent approach. I begin, most generally, with Richard Cohn and Douglas Dempster, who view the musical surface as a “product network,” as generated by multiple and basically independent domains; I also mention James Webster, who admonishes against favoring one element at the expense of others. Next, I rehearse studies that have explored how meter cooperates with various pitch domains. David Lewin, Cohn, and Harald Krebs each argue that harmony and meter can pivot on similar principles or relationships. I will not only draw on such work but also expand on it in a few key ways. (1) I will trace interactions across entire movements (something not all of the above authors do). (2) I will relate meter not only to the tonal realm but to the motivic one as well (which Temperley does only briefly). (3) Most importantly, I will both refine the above authors’ categories of parametric interaction and propose new ones as well.