Melodic Organization and Sequential Ordering of Galant Schemata

Abstract

This article discusses the organization of galant schemata (Gjerdingen 2007) and its significance across the continuum of music-making from composition to improvisation (Nettl 1974). In Section 1, we argue that galant schemata should be defined more clearly as skeletal core tones, outlines for diminution, and surface formulas after Rabinovitch 2018, 2019a, and 2020a (see also Baragwanath 2020). We compare this organization briefly to additional musical systems discussed by Alaghband-Zadeh (2012), Stoia (2013), Mavromatis (2019), and Carter-Enyi (2021). In Section 2, we describe heuristics for moving from surface to individual soprano core tones, demonstrating how schematic melodic skeletons can be derived (bottom-up) through contrapuntal reduction. In Section 3, we address the sequential ordering of schemata within a first reprise or galant exposition (Burstein 2020) in the 1740s, based on a sample of 27 sections analyzed by hand according to the heuristics. We present a backbone of schemata featured in at least twelve of the pieces, which amounts to a tight script for schema successions. The emergent outline has implications for understanding schemata within form (Byros 2013, 2015; Caplin 2015; Neuwirth 2020; see also Burstein 2020), the linear constraints on skeletons, and schema successions in creative processes (Gjerdingen 2007; Sanguinetti 2012): we argue that it is possible to reconstruct broader linear and formal paths by tracking schema types recurring frequently in the sample. In Section 4, we discuss selected movements from the sixth collection of keyboard pieces for connoisseurs and amateurs by C. P. E. Bach, speculating on their mixture of compositional and improvisatory elements.