Brahms's ‘Musical Prose’ Reconsidered

Abstract

In the history of Brahms reception, developing variation has emerged as a central concept. Another suggestive term, musical prose, often accompanies discussions of developing variation. Schoenberg defines musical prose as ‘the direct and straightforward presentation of ideas, without any patchwork, without mere padding and empty repetitions’ ([1947] 1975, p. 414). Current scholarship supposes that developing variation ‘provides the grammar by which musical prose is created’ (Frisch 1984, p. 9). This article restructures the relationship between developing variation and musical prose because a few prose‐like pieces by Brahms exhibit almost no developing variation. These works are representative of the hitherto unacknowledged category of ‘modular discourse’. Modular discourse presents incises that are not related by a common denominator, and many of them in quick succession. In other words, modular discourse does not rely on traditional motivic/thematic workings‐out to generate new content, unlike developing variation. To demonstrate modular procedures at intra‐rotational and inter‐rotational formal levels, I analyse the Andante sostenuto of Symphony No. 1 and the Scherzo of Symphony No. 4. Both movements are cast in multiple rotations within established forms, either sonata or ternary. In addition to discussing the logic of succession from one module to the next, I trace the formal‐functional recontextualisation of modules in later rotations to explain a perceived paradox: given the lack of development – modules often return verbatim or simply transposed – what factors are responsible for the changes in expressive meaning of later rotations?