As Wonderful as Star Clusters: Instruments for Gazing at Tonality in Schubert

Abstract

been grateful to a dull description that faithfully guides me to the places where great artistic experiences await.' So rhapsodized Donald Francis Tovey at the end of his 1928 essay entitled Tonality--later reprinted as Tonality in Schubert-in response to his own description of the D-minor passage preceding the recapitulation of the first movement of the BPMajor Piano Sonata, D. 960, of 1828. Although we will gaze on this music in due time, our telescope first takes the measure of Tovey's metaphor, which is striking for reasons that Tovey probably did not intend. The traditional metaphorical source for tonal relations is the ola system, where positions are determined relative to a central unifying element.2 A star cluster evokes a network of elements and rela-