Review of Yonatan Malin,Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied(Oxford University Press, 2010)

Abstract

[1] Art song involves an oftentimes uneasy marriage between poetry and music, and nowhere is this more apparent than in their respective rhythms. In Songs in Motion Yonatan Malin wades into sometimes fractious relationship between rhythms and musical rhythm and in nineteenth-century German Lied. Malin serves not as a marriage counselor, but more like a sociologist (or sociobiologist) of marriage, a neutral observer, but one with a deep knowledge of and love for institution.[2] Malin approaches and musical rhythm and in Lied taxonomically, looking at most common musical renderings for feet along with their settings in lines of different length (iambic trimeter, trochaic tetrameter, and so forth). He also develops a straightforward schema for representing rhythms and their (musical) metrical setting: accented syllables are indexed relative to their metric position; beats that carry weak or empty syllables are marked with a dash. So, for example, a trimeter (three-stress) line in simple duple might be set [1, 2 / 1 - ], that is, with strong syllables on beats 1, 2, and following 1, and a weak or empty syllable on next beat 2 (16-17). With this elegantly simple premise and methodology, Malin first shows range of possibilities for putting particular rhythms into various musical settings, and then-and this is book's key contribution-he is able to show what possibilities were actually used and are most prevalent. Malin is thus able to talk about these songs in terms of compositional choices made under a complex set of constraints, both musical and lyrical. He is also well positioned to trace rhythmic evolution of genre over course of nineteenth century, from a poetically dominated volkstumlich approach, preferred by composers and poets (especially Goethe) at beginning of nineteenth century to settings with far greater rhythmic variety and complexity at century's end.[3] In his opening chapter Malin lays out his basic poetic/musical taxonomy, with an ear sensitive to nuances of both and musical rhythm. The feet of German lyric poetry involve two or three syllables, typically arranged with three or four stresses per line (trimeter and tetrameter), though dimeter and pentameter (and longer) lines do occur. As Malin notes, however, the recurring patterns of stress and line that define get us only so far to a full understanding of motion...The relationship between rhythm and [poetic] is analogous to relationship between musical rhythm and meter (9). That is, like patterns of duration in music, words can appear in different meters, and have different senses of accentuation, depending upon their setting and placement. In taking account of nuances of accentuation, Malin takes special note of substitutions (e.g., replacing a strong-weak trochee with a weak-strong iamb), degrees of accentuation in longer and more complex lines, and caesuras within and enjambments between lines. He then rings changes for trimeter, tetrameter, and pentameter line types, illustrating each with numerous musical examples. Malin shows how increasing poetic cardinality (moving up from 3 to 4 to 5+ stresses per line) leads to increasing complexity and variety of musical settings and textual-musical rhythmic interactions. A structural Rubicon is crossed in case of pentameter, as five-stress line naturally supports a trimeter subcomponent-indeed, such subdivision of pentameter line is not only possible, but likely.[4] In laying out interactions between and musical rhythm and meter, Malin also resuscitates work of Hans Georg Nageli (1817). Nageli spoke of polyrhythm, that arises from interaction between rhythm, melodic rhythm, and accompaniment rhythm (and metrical aspects of all three). Nageli's approach marks a shift in Lied aesthetics at start of nineteenth century, moving from a preference for volkstumlich tunes to a more ambitious artform of higher status (32). …