1.

In her article The Impormptu That Trod on a Loaf: Or How Music Tells Stories,

Susan McClary talks about how music as an art form contains a very important narrative

element. She states that the period that encompasses the 1700s – 1900s is the most

narrative-oriented period in the history of Western Music. She also makes clear that the

narrative elements in music don’t behave like the narrative elements in literature.

McClary is concerned in trying to detect the narrative aspects of Schubert’s Impromptu

Op. 90 No.2 in E flat Major. Her main point is that this piece contains a very strong

narrative structure. One of the elements that denotes the narrative structure (or the story-

telling structure) would be the minor-mode ending (E flat minor), which acts as the

horrible fate that comes to the innocent and naïve little tune of the beginning (She

makes a comparison to Anderson’s short story The Little Girl who Troad on a Loaf).

Another important narrative element would be the instances where the main line hangs

in the upper register before the innocent tune comes back again, as in mm. 50-52.

McClary compares this to similar effects in movie soundtracks that are employed to

emphasize upcoming events and in a way invite us to wonder about the possible

outcomes of the plot.

2. I do find Susan McClary’s analysis of Schubert’s Impromptu very convincing. In

fact, speaking from the point of view of a pianist, such an analysis is of great interest to

any performer. The main point that I value about her analysis is her overall structural

narrative idea of the Impromptu. As McClary explains, the piece is in an unusual ternary

form, since we have a return of B in a slightly modified form, being thus the overall

structure: ABAB1. I agree with McClary’s idea that the A section represents this idea of

innocence and naivety, while the B section is tragic, crude and represents the inevitable

fatality of destiny. This idea of hers makes absolute sense and is strongly justified by

the music theory behind it. For instance, the A section isn’t innocent because it simply
sounds that way, but because the melody “burbles along in weightless triplets, easily

flowing through the gamut from high to low, then effortlessly springing back up to the

higher range again. So secure is it that it repeats itself twice with ever greater

exuberance – first louder, then transposed up an octave. It is, moreover, exceptionally

confident of its tonal identity: its harmonies never deviate during the first twenty-four

bars from the primary chords required for key orientation” (McClary 26). I must say

that there is only one point where I don’t fully agree with McClary. This is when she

talks about narrative. Meaning, she never gives a clear definition of what narrative is.

When speaking about renaissance music, she mentions in page 21 how music before the

1700s doesn’t “do anything I would classify as narrative within the music itself.”

Instead of narrative, I am keener to think in terms of the melos of a piece. The greek

word melos from “Melo-día” is the conductive thread that drives the music from

beginning to end. In my opinion, the melos, or conductive thread, in the renaissance is

formed and conceived polyphonically, something that starts changing from the 1700s.

From this point on, the melos starts to be conceived purely melodically, but the melos is

still there. For example, I would argue that the B theme of a classical sonata arouse from

the countersubject of fugues and other polyphonic settings of music before the 1700s.

The B theme of a classical sonata would be a not-simultaneous countersubject that

comes after the main subject, and it makes since, since the fathers of the classical sonata

were all expert contrapuntists. Thus, instead of a narrative, I would tend to prefer to

think in terms of a melos; a melos that perfectly exists in the Renaissance. What we see

in the 1700s is the beginning of the melodification of the melos, which is treated in an

absolutely horizontal way.