Emergent Modality

Abstract

Among Brahms’s solo Lieder that depict a piece-spanning shift between parallel minor and major tonics, “Todessehnen” (op. 86, no. 6), “Schwermut” (op. 58, no. 5), and “Dämmrung senkte sich von oben” (op. 59, no. 1) stand out for setting poetry that portrays a duality between burdensome life and transcendent death, or darkness versus light. This article explores how Brahms’s paradoxical treatment of the life-versus-death theme (associating death with an escape from suffering and the major mode, as noted in related analyses by ".fn_cite($platt_1992)." and ".fn_cite($suurpaa_2003).") correlates with a “tragic-to-transcendent” expressive genre (".fn_cite($hatten_1994).", 69) and enacts a series of poetic “turning points” (".fn_cite($huhn_2005).") that reflect the protagonist’s changing perception of temporality. I argue that the major mode emerges gradually in each song, first as an “implicit” (or “nascent”) tonic, then as a cadentially confirmed (or “realized”) key at the structural cadence. Close Schenkerian analyses of all songs show that their minor-to-major progressions are neither immediate nor direct. Rather, the songs share four tonal features that facilitate the modal change, enact a shift from “tragic” to “transcendent” expression, and actualize “poetic turning points:” 1) the parallel major emerges as a cadentially unconfirmed, nascent tonic; 2) prolongations of ".fn_flat('')."VI or IV delay a cadence in the parallel major key and convey the speaker’s entrance into new temporalities and perceptions; 3) the structural cadence confirms the major key and lays the modal conflict to rest; and 4) the postlude echoes the minor form of ".fn_scaledegree("6").", as if recalling the protagonist’s earlier struggles. The elevated expression of cadential ".fn_figbass("",64)." chords near the structural cadence—treated in the manner of “arrival six-four” chords (".fn_cite($hatten_1994).", 15)—suggests the actualization of a “transcendent” expression and either a future or intensified present temporality that the poem implies but does not realize.