peter h. smith Brahms's Motivic Harmonies and Contemporary Tonal Theory: Three Case Studies from the Chamber Music Introductionm usa_287 63..110In his classic essay 'Issues in Composition', Carl Dahlhaus marshalls insights inspired by Schoenberg's 'Brahms the Progressive' in the service of a larger historical enterprise. Namely, Dahlhaus aspires to uncover 'a single, unified background to the music of the [later nineteenth century], far outweighing the significance of stylistic differences and the partisanship of composers and their adherents'. 1 As one would expect given its Schoenbergian pedigree, the essay lavishes considerable attention on teasing out underlying relationships between Wagnerian methods of thematic exposition and Brahms's procedures of developing variation. Like Schoenberg, Dahlhaus also offers observations on progressive aspects of Brahms's harmonic language as a corollary to Wagner's wandering or floating tonality.One aspect of tonal organisation that Dahlhaus cites as evidence of an underlying unity of practice is the late nineteenth-century proclivity for what he calls the 'individualisation' of harmony. Dahlhaus suggests that eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century form depends on stereotypical patterns of chord progression, cadence and key to delineate the multi-levelled periodicities he hears as fundamental to the style. The abandonment in the later nineteenth century of formal symmetry in favour of musical prose had the consequence of freeing harmony from the need to maintain generic tonal patterns.The emphasis shifts, in Wagner and Liszt, to idiosyncratic harmonic details that exist as much for their own sake as for any role they might play in a larger tonal framework. Individual chords or unusual progressions may even acquire a characteristic identity comparable to that of a Leitmotiv, according to Dahlhaus. 2 Dahlhaus observes a propensity for motivic harmony in Brahms as well, although he adds a crucial caveat: 'It is characteristic of Brahms ... that on the one hand, as the contemporary of Wagner and Liszt, he strove to give harmonic details "unique identity", while on the other hand ... he did not wish to sacrifice the structural function that tonal harmony could perform over a wide expanse'. 3 Dahlhaus makes some brief observations about the opening of the D minor Piano Concerto to illustrate the delicate balance Brahms maintains between harmonic idiosyncrasy and tonal function. A similar balance characterises the three compositions that will be the focus of my analytical work in this article: the Dahlhaus engages musical details in the concerto only aphoristically, and music theorists might find themselves disappointed by the absence of a more extended analytical treatment. However, his larger point about Brahms's commitment, shared with Wagner and Liszt, to harmonic individualisation is provocative, and the topic cries out for deeper analysis. Before comparing Brahms's practice with Wagner's -a project that extends well beyond the scope of the present article -we must take a ...