This cycle is designed to transmit some very different messages at the same\u00a0time. And this ambiguity is reflected in the number of compositions: the\u00a0three contrasting songs are at the same time three similar parts of one\u00a0song. It would only be consistent to expect the amount of bars in this\u00a0song(s) to adapt itself accordingly. Which means that the results of the\u00a0recount could be somewhat less certain than the inflexible laws of\u00a0mathematics predict.<\/p>\n
Of course a regular piece-to-piece counting of written bars will never\u00a0produce a deviating result. So, in this case this is not the proper procedure.\u00a0To get somewhere we must start from following paragraph from Part One:<\/p>\n
\nTherefore it is no surprise to recognize in the partsongs a connection between\u00a0the words and their musical expression that is as close as in the music of Bach.\u00a0The most obvious example of this imitative style, is the music\u2019s slow dying\u00a0away on \u2018die\u2019, but it is also applied on the more obscure details. And even the\u00a0totally invisible one: Virtue\u2019s textreduction from 16 to 12 lines is reflected in the\u00a0choise of measure. Choises actually: in the end Sweet Day is still telling a\u00a0complete story, and so the 3\/4 beat is in the two final bars replaced by a 4\/4.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
One of the more obscure details is the fact that\u00a0Sweet Day<\/i>\u00a0covers\u00a0exactly 49 out of its 50 bars. As a rule, every written bar is counted for a full\u00a0one, even when (most of) it represents silence. But to be truely imitative,\u00a0the music must add up to a netto score of 49 bars as well: 16 2\/3 for verse\u00a01; 17 1\/3 for verse 2; and 15 for verse 3. Allowing the score to copy the text\u00a0in reducing virtue a little more as a first glance reveals.<\/p>\n
Applied on the verses of\u00a0O Mistress Mine<\/i>, this same method produces a\u00a0score of 13 1\/2 + 13 1\/2 = 27 bars. Related to her size, a significant larger\u00a0reduction than\u00a0Sweet Day<\/i>\u2019s, but then, the reduction of her virtue is according\u00a0to Part Two far more spectacular as well.<\/p>\n
In contrast to her companions\u00a0The Willow Song<\/i>\u00a0suffers no reduction of virtue.\u00a0Lack of virtue is her main concern – Shakespeare did not insert some\u00a0explicitly sexual remarks in the song for nothing – and what is not there,\u00a0cannot be reduced. Another thing lacking is a division in verses, so the music\u00a0flows on uninterrupted; covering all 33 bars from begin to end. What the\u00a0song does have, however, is a division into story and refrain.<\/p>\n
Considering that in these songs the story is everything, we could leave\u00a0the refrain out. But neither Shakespeare nor RVW give any certainty\u00a0whether the ninth line is the only complete line from the refrain, or a part of\u00a0the story. Leaving the options open to delete either 13 or 18 bars. On the\u00a0other hand we are by now aware of the great similarity between songs. The\u00a0outer pair being identical twins is good reason to delete at this point some\u00a0information from the story, and to insert a refrain instead. And by reducing\u00a0the centre to its four or five refrain lines, we arrive at a total of\u00a0 five different\u00a0options: 33; 20; 18; 15; and 13 bars.<\/p>\n
Instead of a fixed total of 112 bars, we are now facing (in proper order)\u00a02 x 5 x 2 = 20 different ways to count them, producing 15 different results,\u00a0ranging from 89 to 112. And this is only the beginning: the music’s imitation of\u00a0the text includes OMM turning into a dance on the word \u2018trip\u2019. This dance\u00a0involves in bars 8 and 10 the appearance of triplets; 3\/8\u00a0motives in the timespace of a quarter, in this case consisting of a stressed crotchet (1\/4) followed by an unstressed quaver (1\/8):\u00a0long<\/b>-short-long<\/b>-short-long<\/b>-short. In short: this is a walz.<\/p>\n
Which means that RVW has managed to spirit away eight complete bars:\u00a0walzes are usually written in 3\/4. All metrical accents in bars 8 and 10, and\u00a0in the second verse\u2019s bars 22 and 24, therefore are in fact downbeats of\u00a0separate 3\/4-measured bars. This results in four options: 27; 29; 35; and\u00a037, and 2 x 5 x 4 = 40 totals.<\/p>\n
The first multiplier will also raise, so we now are in acute danger of\u00a0drowning in data which relevancy is still questionable. Therefore it is from\u00a0this point onward very important to keep in mind that this first song, the\u00a0one this procedure is supposed to set apart from the Shakespearean\u00a0couple, has reduced\u00a0Virtue<\/i>\u00a0by four lines; from sixteen to twelve.<\/p>\n
As mentioned,\u00a0Sweet Day<\/i>\u2019s verses cover respectively 16 2\/3; 17 1\/3 and 15\u00a0bars. The third verse, however, concludes with two bars in a deviating 4\/4\u00a0beat. Such a change is not uncommon in music, but at this occasion it is\u00a0rather peculiar: while handling with superior control the irregularities in the\u00a0meters of two lines in this song, RVW allows himself not even the slightest\u00a0irregularity in his chosen measure. And now, dealing with an immaculate\u00a0regular meter, he introduces an irregularity of his own making.<\/p>\n
The mathematical correct way to express the presence of different kinds\u00a0of bars in the calculation, is the placing of the third verse between brackets.\u00a0With verses one and two sharing bar 18, the regular way of counting now\u00a0looks like this:<\/p>\n
17 + 1 + 17 + (13 + 2) = 50<\/p>\n
The netto sized alternative runs:<\/p>\n
16 2\/3 + 17 1\/3 + (13 + 2) = 49<\/p>\n
Brackets are very usefull to isolate a part of the calculation. Making it possible to introduce changes without disturbing the formula as a whole. And\u00a0because mathematics is a necessary part of a composer\u2019s professional\u00a0education, RVW must have been aware of the fact he created such an\u00a0opportunity. This being his very intention, would make a rather plausible\u00a0explanation for a seemingly lighthearted abandoning of a beat he previously\u00a0considered worth a real effort in maintaining. And indeed; applying between\u00a0brackets all four basic routines will prove very instructive:<\/p>\n
\nVarying the formula with (13 + 2); (13 – 2); (13 x 2), and (13 : 2),\u00a0produces 8 different results: 40 1\/2; 41 1\/2; 45; 46; 49; 50; 60; and 61.\u00a0Leading up to 8 x 5 x 4 = 160 different ways to calculate an overall score,\u00a0with 70 different results, ranging from 80 1\/2 to 131. But no musicologist will\u00a0ever accept fractions for the overall size of a piece of music. And RVW seems\u00a0to have carefully avoided such a breach of rules to happen in both TWS and\u00a0OMM. Musically isolating SD from a combination of TWS and OMM by a\u00a0fractioned number of bars must therefore be considered impossible. Which\u00a0makes the calculations resulting in fractions for SD\u2019s total, superfluous.<\/p>\n
This not only leads to a marvellous regularity in the formula that defines\u00a0the number of alternative calculations: 6 x 5 x 4. It also reduces their\u00a0number from 160 to 120 by removing the fourty superfluous ones.<\/p>\n
This in exact parallel of the reduction of Virtue to Sweet Day.
\n<\/i><\/p>\n—<\/span><\/p>\n
—<\/span><\/p>\n
go to next chapter<\/a>\u00a0– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/span>\u00a0back to the previous chapter<\/a><\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This cycle is designed to transmit some very different messages at the same\u00a0time. And this ambiguity is reflected in the number of compositions: the\u00a0three contrasting songs are at the same time three similar parts of one\u00a0song. It would only be … Continue reading