| The main purpose of this study is to better understand the relationship of text and music in the songs of Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) based on texts of Gottfried Keller (1819-1890). Wolf and Schoenberg, usually seen by modern scholars as representing different stages in the Lied continuum, show strong similarities in their methods of text-setting and motivic processes. This reinforces Schoenberg's position as a link between late 19th- and early 20th -century German song. Both composers construct a musical motive, based on a central image of the text, which then governs the entire song, but they diverge greatly in their employment of this motive. Schoenberg chooses to include the motive in a process of development (as he does in his later atonal works), which affects the song at the foreground, middleground, and background structural levels. By contrast, Wolf chooses a motive, typically placed in the accompaniment, which reflects the overall mood or idea of the poem, and then develops it mainly at the surface level. His motive usually retains its rhythmic qualities, with the development of the motive occurring at the foreground---in the harmony, contour, length or texture---supporting the changing moods of the text in an effective way. This study compares how their Keller songs cohere in terms of a central image borrowed from the text, and to what extent the song is shaped by the development of the motive based on this image, as well as how the motive develops based on the changing moods of the text.; There are poetic analyses and interpretations of each of the texts of the songs, examples of harmonic analysis using Roman-numeral and Schenkerian analytical methods, and analyses of developments in melodic contour and rhythm where necessary to support the noted text-music connections. The songs included in this discussion are Wolf's Keller Songs (1890), and "Die Aufgeregten" (The Agitated Ones) (Op.3/2, 1903), "Geubtes Herz" (Well-used Heart) (Op.3/5, 1903), and "Ghasel" (Op.6/5, 1905) by Schoenberg. |
