There are many reasons why I don’t feel exactly the same, even so I visit the exact place twice or listen exactly to the very same sounds. Remember my blog entry about the Emperor quartet?
No man ever steps in the same river twice.
One of these reasons is the “horizontal” contextification, i.e. the context modulation by sounds we experience BEFORE we hear the same sound sequence again.
When you hear the first 6 bars of the first topic of Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony – that is till the point where the first violin syncopes appear (see upper red line),
you may experience a sense of an opening – enforced by the two tutti chords that were heavily demanding your attention prior to this.
Now listen how these 6 bars return after a huge odyssey, where the triad subject of the cello had be taken through so many different keys, colors and forms:
Instead of the two orchestra beats, a very silent atmosphere of uncertainty is now prevailing, and it looks like – maybe even from this very reason! – that the horn is mistakenly starting the subject before the ‘true’ 6 bars appearing again.
Now, this isn’t a feeling of an opening anymore. I would describe it rather as way of
“coming home”...
even so through a strange path, maybe even through the back door. But it wouldn’t be Beethoven, if after the six bars the subject is slipping again away from its original tune in the beginning and taking you through another sound trip until really getting home at the very end of this piece.
And yes, it is of course worth to listen to the whole movement at once. Then this effect of context modulation becomes even much bigger due to the larger context you are experiencing. Moreover, if the exposition is being repeated – and this is luckily the case of the shown recording here – then you get this experience even another time, just again in another context.
Horizontal contextification happens of course also at a much smaller scale.
Christmas isn’t that long ago and who doesn’t remember this wonderful song “A rose has sprung up” anyway?
The beginning phrase happens 3 times:
the first as the opening,
the second exact phrase as a kind of confirmation (before another different phrase breaks in).
Then the first phrase comes back a third time, this time as the concluding phrase, ending with the exact notes like at the beginning.
I must admit, I discovered this as a child by “accident”, by hearing, not by looking onto the notes, many, many times after I had heard this song already.
Well, you may argue, this comparison isn’t true, as the last time the German composer Michael Praetorius had chosen different harmonies along the phrase, which we hear in this example. (I hoped you would have rose up this argument!)
That’s correct. But listen to the melody alone, it is still working! Try to sing it in your head.
Moreover, this way we can see that
Horizontal and vertical contextification are working very well together.
But now comes the really difficult part.
Another contextification example in a "free sound territory"
Can we contextify non-tonal or even noisy sound sequences the same way as we just heard with the various melodic examples?
Or is there a reason that in most music where sounds live in a kind of experimental or harsh sound territory no bar wishes to be exact the same way as another one?
Let’s give it a try! Are you able to catch the exact identical sound path that happens after some time in the below example?
Hint: The same sequence appears the second time within the first 2 minutes. And even a third time when you listen to the remaining 2-3 minutes of this piece.
How does it feel, each time it appears?
Not really the same, wouldn’t it?
Would you even have noticed when untold?
Always happy to hear what you think!
More readings:
If you are not familiar with the sonata form, I recommend this Wiki entry
More info about "Clung Symphony", see The Magic E@r, chapter 3.11, "In the backyard of sounds"
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