Shubert Music Analysis the Work of Shubert Die SchöNE Müllerin, No 19

Table of Contents

Introduction; analysis of the sound
Harmony
Melody
Rhythm
Growth of form; conclusion
Reference List
Outline

Introduction; analysis of the sound

Analyzing the work of Shubert Die schöne Müllerin, no 19, and its part ‘Der Müller und der Bach’ I used the technology of LaRue (1992), who suggests paying attention to sound, harmony, melody, rhythm and the growth of form.

The work consists of two parts which represent different images. The first part has a g-moll key, and the second – the e-moll key.

The timbre is delightful and mild. The sound is soft.

Instrumentation consists of the vocalist and the piano. The texture includes the melody and an accompaniment. The only instrument used is fortepiano.

It is also important to mention the pitch of the voice, which is male, high voice (tenor). The work consists of 1 part (solo).

Harmony

Concerning the harmony, the general flow of the accompaniment fits the voice’s melody with few differences: the melody in accompaniment doesn’t sound fully but is replaced by its variations, which are presented with different voices. The harmony is consonant, with the dominance of the I, II, IV and V levels of bar-lines in the accompaniment. There are Colorful Chords in accompaniment, which are divided to arpeggio in the second part. The harmony is obviously complex. There are both Intervallic and Triadic chords of different kinds present.

Melody

The melody is in general smooth and hummable in both parts. On the middle level there are rising and falling motives in phrases which switch and remind the movement of waves. The concrete level suggests that some melodies begin before the tact, having an effect of exciting beginning. The sounding is unordinary and has the stress on the second beat. The interesting tendency is that when the melody goes up the scale the sound rises, and when the melody goes down the scale, the sound volume reduces. The instrumental melody is rather florid and rich in combination of sounds.

The text setting is melismatic, which means that there are several pitches to one syllable; the vocals are presented by several sounds of the melody.

The range is wide, mostly high in melody, dictated by peculiarities of the tenor pitch of voice.

The movement is conjunct and smooth.

Rhythm

The rhythm is metrically restricted. The listeners can feel the surface of the rhythm. The meter of rhythm 3/8 reminds of the rhythm of a waltz, but with the moderato tempus the melody is soft and balanced.The triple meter means existence of the three basic notes in every bar-line. These notes have the meaningful stress and the first one is the most important.

In the main melody of tenor part dominate the rhythmic groups of quavers and semiquavers. In the fortepiano accompaniment in the first part of the work are mostly the chords with the duration of quarter note or a quarter and a rest. The accompaniment of the second part is characterized by the arpeggio rhythmic groups which consist of six semiquavers in one voice and 3/8 in the other.

There also are different special effects used in the melody and accompaniment, such as the dotted rhythms and syncopation, which distort the ordinary accentuation of the melody and also makes the sounding fresh and pulsing.

Growth of form; conclusion

Talking about the growth, it must be said that the tempo is unchangeable till the end of the song; it is soft and does not fluctuate. The tempo is smooth, tempo moderato.

Analyzing the dynamics, it can be stated that most of the work has a sound of piano or mezzo piano. There are also some periodical rests in the work (diminuendo at the end of the phrases and crescendo at their beginning).

All in all, the melody is very soft and harmonic. The lyrics are of a philosophical content and reveal the feelings of heroes. The song is a bit pathetic and its main subject is love.

Reference List

Benward, Bruce and Saker, M 2003, Music in Theory and Practice, 7th edn, vol. 2, McGraw-Hill, Boston.

Berry, W 1966, Musical Structure and Performance, Dodd, Mead & Co., NY.

Cogan, Robert and Pozzi E 1984, Sonic Design: The Nature of Sound and Music, Publication Contact International, Cambridge.

Hopkins, A 1993 Understanding Music, Oxford University Press, NY.

LaRue, J 1992, Guidelines for Style Analysis, 2nd edn, Harmonic Park Press, Michigan.

Schwartz, E 1982, Music: Ways of Listening, CBS College Publishing, NY.

Outline

Introduction; analysis of the sound
Harmony
Melody
Rhythm
Growth of form; conclusion

Section	Bars	Key	Harmony	Melody	Texture/accompt	Text/effect
Miller	1-5	Gm	Tonic	Mid range	Intervallic chords, phonic	Introduction, a lyrical image
	6-11	Gm	Tonic	Mid range,estab Gm	Intervallic chords, triads	Peace, beauty
	12-17	Gm	Dominant, subdom	Higher dom	Tripplets maintain galloping	Feelings between two people, sad
	18-23	Gm	A6	Melody more insistent higher	Intervallic chords, repetitive	Peace (image of heaven)
	24-28	Gm	Tonic	Mid range, smooth	Simple bass-chd, still triplets keep moving	Philosophical mood
Brook	29-34	Em	Tonic, dom	Lovely conjunct melody	Triplets in arpeggios, not galloping	Love and its power, a bit pathetic
	35-40	Em	Dominant	Dom mid range	Still arpeggios	Smooth shining (star image)
	41-46	Em	Tonic	Smooth triadic dec on cadence	Arpeggios, as originally	Blossom, flowers
	47-52	Em	Subdom	High subdom	Arpeggios, bass chords	Sense of beauty
	53-58	Em	Subdom	Subdom mid range	Smooth arpeggios	Sunrise, freshness
	59-64	Em	Subdom	Tone lower	Arpeggios, Gm	Addressing to a girl in a tender way
	65-70	Em	Tonic	Tonic-dom – secure but lower	Arpeggios, Gm	Philosophical view on love
	71-76	Em->Gm	Tonic	Tone higher again	Arpeggios, Gm	Feeling of piece, inspiration
	77-82	Em->Gm	Dominant	Smooth triadic dc on cadence, dom	Triplets in arpeggios	A rather sad feeling, prediction of a goodbye
	83-89	Em->Gm	Tonic	Acompanement	Galloping stops, dim	Pathetic melody

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