Playing with a Galant Cliché: The 'Marpurg Cadence' in Schubert's D. 537, iii

In the second volume of his Kritische Briefe (1763), Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg mentions "eine besondere Art von ganzer Cadenz", which he considers to be typical for "[d]er galante Styl". This cadential schema features a dominant 6/4-chord with the first scale degree in the top voice. Contrary to conventional expectations, the resulting 'dissonant' fourth (considered against the bass), does not resolve by a descending diatonic semitone, but instead moves up a whole tone before coming to a final resolution into the tonic chord. The distinctive voice leading pattern in the melody thus consists of 1-2-1. Another characteristic element of this 'Marpurg cadence', or 'Marpurg's galant cadence', is the embellishment of scale degree two. In this paper, I will first focus on the gradually shifting usage of Marpurg's galant cadence in the repertoire. At the very beginning of its originating history, starting in galant music around ca. 1730, it functions as a powerful tonal and thus formal marker. During the late classical period, however, composers increasingly employ the Marpurg cadence as a topos: a smooth stylistic reference to a certain galant feeling. After that, the discussion of both these two aspects of Marpurg's galant cadence – potential formal meaning and rhetorical-stylistic association – will help us to understand Schubert's peculiar ingenuity in the third movement of his piano sonata D. 537. Not only from a historical, but also from a piece-intrinsic point of view, specific attention to Marpurg's galant cadence will bring about fruitful analytical considerations and a new listening experience.status: publishe