An Introduction to Narrative Analysis
M763, s14
Narrative analysis can be briefly described as analysis of music that takes seriously the
unfolding of music in time. A good example is “Aus meinen Thränen spriessen” from Schumann’s
Dichterliebe, op. 48. The famous analysis by Heinrich Schenker in Der Freie Satz shows this song as
being in the key of A major from its first note.
This makes sense if you start with this song, rather than at the beginning of the song cycle,
of which this is the second song. But can a listener hear that the song is in A from the first note,
especially in the context of the song cycle, unless he or she already knows the key? A narrative
analysis of this song might take into consideration that the previous song ends with a half cadence in
F# minor, and that this is apparently confirmed in the opening measure of the song. A narrative
analysis might therefore consider the song apparently to begin in F# minor, and for its ultimate key
of A major to emerge later.1
Another example can be found in the Scherzo from Schumann’s Piano Quartet in Bb, op.
47. It is unlikely that a listener who doesn’t already know this piece and does not have the score
could determine the meter and rhythmic placement of this unison string of eighth notes (unless the
performers really want him or her to). Is it in , or ? Does it start on the downbeat, or with two
anacrustic eighths?
1
See Joseph Kerman, “How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out of It,” Critical Inquiry 7 (Winter,
1980): 311-31.
…well, I’m certainly not going to tell you. Instead, I’ll note that is only during the Trio I that
the meter and the location of the downbeat becomes clear. When the Scherzo is repeated, the
rhythmic and metric structure is now immediately apparent. When the repetition of the Scherzo is
followed by the Trio 2, the equally ambiguous meter and rhythmic placement of that Trio is also
clear.
This approach to analysis was pioneered by Edward T. Cone in a series of articles (and a
book) that included "Beyond Analysis" (1967), reprinted in Music: A View from Delft, 55-75; The
Composer's Voice (Berkeley, 1974); "Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story-Or a Brahms
Intermezzo" (1977), reprinted in Music: A View from Delft, 77- 93; "Schubert's Promissory Note: An
Exercise in Musical Hermeneutics” (1982), revised version reprinted in Schubert: Critical and Analytical
Studies, 13-30 and "Schubert's Unfinished Business" (1984), reprinted in Music: A View from Delft, 201-
16. We will read some of these.
You will have noticed a heavy emphasis on German Romantic music. Although these
strategies are valuable for other music as well, it makes sense that Romanticism is particularly rich in
exemplars. As Friedrich Blume states, Romantic music “makes use of such intensified means that it
despotically sweeps the listener under its spell and robs him of his own powers of imagination;” this
is art “the formative strength of which is weaker [than Classical music] but which for that reason
imposes upon the hearer its demonic powers.”2 So we find in the first statement of the Scherzo of
the Schumann Piano Quartet a relentless repetition of an deliberately ambiguous metric/rhythmic
formation, like the rantings of a monomaniac who can only repeat a single theme, and we wait, a
captive audience, for the clue that will enable us to understand its organizing principle.
2
Friedrich Blume, trans. M.D. Herter Norton, Classic and Romantic Music (W.W. Norton, 1970), 15, 17.
