The Grundgestalt and Schubert's sonata forms.

This study is an examination of the relationship between the basic compositional materials of a work and its large-scale form. Schoenberg and others have suggested that a composition arises first as a simultaneity, an atemporal, multidimensional idea that includes aspects of thematic construction, harmony, rhythm, and countless other factors. This study explores the notion that in order for this atemporal idea to be linearized across time as a particular work of music, it is activated by an event that occurs on the musical surface. This event can be described as a compositional problem that, as the link between the idea of a piece and its linearization, indicates what the work is to be about, the nature of the set of issues it proposes to treat. Here this problem is called the Grundgestalt. The term is Schoenberg's and is usually translated as basic shape, or motive. While Schoenberg himself was not definite as to what he meant by it, it is clear that it was tremendously important to his thinking about aspects both of unity and of propulsion in a work. The notion of basic shape has been widely explored as the source of much unity, showing similar or derived shapes as being responsible for unifying large musical units, even underlying materials that are highly differentiated on their surfaces. This explanation does not account for how it is that a piece is caused to take its particular shape, however, and thus Grundgestalt is explored here as a shaping force, the cause of a work's progression through time. On this view, the piece takes its shape as a consequence of the workings-out of the initial compositional problem, the Grundgestalt. Schubert's sonata forms are often criticized as unsuccessful because of their lack of conformity with formal models derived from the music of his contemporaries, particularly Beethoven. Analytical efforts based around the Grundgestalt, however, show Schubert's unusual sonata forms to be highly coherent dialectical explorations of some profound tonal problems. The four analyses provided here thus demonstrate both the music's integrity and the power of the Grundgestalt as an analytical tool.PhDCommunication and the ArtsMusicUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129765/2/9624606.pd