Thematic transformation
Encyclopedia
Thematic transformation is a technique of where a leitmotif
, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using Permutation
(Transposition
or Modulation
, Inversion
, and Retrograde
), Augmentation
, Diminution
, and Fragmentation
. It was primarily developed by Franz Liszt
and his good friend Hector Berlioz
. The technique is essentially one of variation
. A basic theme is reprised throughout a musical work, but it undergoes constant transformations and disguises and is made to appear in several contrasting roles. However, the transformations of this theme will always serve the purpose of "unity within variety" that was the architectural role of sonata form
in the classical symphony. The difference here is that thematic transformation can accommodate the dramatically charged phrases, highly colored melodies and atmospheric harmonies favored by the Romantic composers, whereas sonata form was geared more toward the more objective characteristics of absolute music
. Also, while thematic transformation is similar to variation, the effect is usually different since the transformed theme has a life of its own and is no longer a sibling to the original theme.
had already used thematic transformation in his Fifth Symphony
, and Ninth Symphony
, where the "Ode to Joy" theme is transformed at one point into a Turkish march, complete with cymbal
s and drum
s. Franz Schubert
used metamorphosis to bind together the four movements of his Wanderer Fantasy
, a work which influenced Liszt greatly. However, Liszt perfected the technique by creating entire structures from metamorphosis alone. He may have already had experience in metamorphosing themes into various shapes in his early operatic fantasies and improvisations and been also led to this practice by the monothematicism Liszt employed in many of his original works, including most of the Transcendental Etudes
.
demanded by sonata form
. However, the evocative, atmospheric melodies which Romantic composers such as Liszt tended to prefer left him little choice. These melodies, complete in themselves, already bore all the emotion and musical interest which they could hold; therefore, they could not be developed any further. The only apparent course open was to substitute a form of repetition for true development—in other words, to say in a different way what had already been said and trust the beauty and significance of what are fundamentally variations to supply the place of the development section demanded by sonata form. Moreover, Liszt's own view of repetition was more positive than that of his critics. He wrote, "It is a mistake to regard repetition as a poverty of invention. From the standpoint of the public it is indispensable for the understanding of the thought, while from the standpoint of Art it is almost identical with the demands of clarity, structure, and effectiveness."
points out that "the serial methods of Schönberg
, for instance, use precisely the methods of Liszt's thematic transformation within the framework of an entirely different [musical] language." Richard Wagner
, Gustav Holst
, and John Williams
heavily used thematic transformation in their compositions. Thematic transformation is used widely today in film scores such as in Up
where the character themes have as many as four variations throughout the movie.
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
, or theme, is developed by changing the theme by using Permutation
Permutation (music)
In music, a permutation of a set is any ordering of the elements of that set. Different permutations may be related by transformation, through the application of zero or more of certain operations, such as transposition, inversion, retrogradation, circular permutation , or multiplicative operations...
(Transposition
Transposition (music)
In music transposition refers to the process, or operation, of moving a collection of notes up or down in pitch by a constant interval.For example, one might transpose an entire piece of music into another key...
or Modulation
Modulation (music)
In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
, Inversion
Inversion (music)
In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices...
, and Retrograde
Retrograde (music)
A musical line which is the reverse of a previously or simultaneously stated line is said to be its retrograde or cancrizans. An exact retrograde includes both the pitches and rhythms in reverse. An even more exact retrograde reverses the physical contour of the notes themselves, though this is...
), Augmentation
Augmentation (music)
In Western music and music theory, the word augmentation has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used...
, Diminution
Diminution
In Western music and music theory, diminution has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series of shorter, usually melodic, values...
, and Fragmentation
Fragmentation (music)
In music composition, fragmentation is the use of fragments or the "division of a musical idea into segments." It is used in tonal and atonal music, and is a common method of localized development and closure....
. It was primarily developed by Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
and his good friend Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
. The technique is essentially one of variation
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
. A basic theme is reprised throughout a musical work, but it undergoes constant transformations and disguises and is made to appear in several contrasting roles. However, the transformations of this theme will always serve the purpose of "unity within variety" that was the architectural role of sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
in the classical symphony. The difference here is that thematic transformation can accommodate the dramatically charged phrases, highly colored melodies and atmospheric harmonies favored by the Romantic composers, whereas sonata form was geared more toward the more objective characteristics of absolute music
Absolute music
Absolute music is a concept in music that describes music as an art form separated from formalisms or other considerations; it is not explicitly about anything; it is non-representational. In contrast to program music, absolute music makes sense without accompanying words, images, drama, or...
. Also, while thematic transformation is similar to variation, the effect is usually different since the transformed theme has a life of its own and is no longer a sibling to the original theme.
Development
Liszt was not the first composer to use thematic transformation. Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
had already used thematic transformation in his Fifth Symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all of classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. It comprises four movements: an opening sonata, an andante, and a fast...
, and Ninth Symphony
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
, where the "Ode to Joy" theme is transformed at one point into a Turkish march, complete with cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s and drum
Drum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s. Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
used metamorphosis to bind together the four movements of his Wanderer Fantasy
Wanderer Fantasy
The Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 , popularly known as the Wanderer Fantasy, is a four-movement fantasy for solo piano composed by Franz Schubert in November 1822. It is considered Schubert's most technically demanding composition for the piano...
, a work which influenced Liszt greatly. However, Liszt perfected the technique by creating entire structures from metamorphosis alone. He may have already had experience in metamorphosing themes into various shapes in his early operatic fantasies and improvisations and been also led to this practice by the monothematicism Liszt employed in many of his original works, including most of the Transcendental Etudes
Transcendental Etudes
The Transcendental Etudes , S.139, are a series of twelve compositions for solo piano by Franz Liszt. They were published in 1852 as a revision of a more technically difficult 1837 series, which in turn were the elaboration of a set of studies written in 1826:...
.
Controversy
Conservative critics in Liszt's time viewed thematic transformation as merely a substitution of repetition for the musical developmentMusical development
In European classical music, musical development is a process by which a musical idea is communicated in the course of a composition. It refers to the transformation and restatement of initial material, and is often contrasted with musical variation, which is a slightly different means to the same...
demanded by sonata form
Sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
. However, the evocative, atmospheric melodies which Romantic composers such as Liszt tended to prefer left him little choice. These melodies, complete in themselves, already bore all the emotion and musical interest which they could hold; therefore, they could not be developed any further. The only apparent course open was to substitute a form of repetition for true development—in other words, to say in a different way what had already been said and trust the beauty and significance of what are fundamentally variations to supply the place of the development section demanded by sonata form. Moreover, Liszt's own view of repetition was more positive than that of his critics. He wrote, "It is a mistake to regard repetition as a poverty of invention. From the standpoint of the public it is indispensable for the understanding of the thought, while from the standpoint of Art it is almost identical with the demands of clarity, structure, and effectiveness."
Legacy
In perfecting this compositional method, Liszt made what some critics consider a lasting contribution to the history of musical form since thematic transformation became a regular part of later 19th-century music, especially at the hands of Liszt's followers. Liszt authority Humphrey SearleHumphrey Searle
Humphrey Searle was a British composer.-Biography:He was born in Oxford where he was a classics scholar before studying — somewhat hesitantly — with John Ireland at the Royal College of Music in London, after which he went to Vienna on a six month scholarship to become a private pupil of Anton...
points out that "the serial methods of Schönberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, for instance, use precisely the methods of Liszt's thematic transformation within the framework of an entirely different [musical] language." Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, and John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
heavily used thematic transformation in their compositions. Thematic transformation is used widely today in film scores such as in Up
Up (2009 film)
Up is a 2009 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and presented in Disney Digital 3-D. The film premiered on May 29, 2009 in North America and opened the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, becoming the first animated and 3D film...
where the character themes have as many as four variations throughout the movie.
See also
- LeitmotifLeitmotifA leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
- Hector BerliozHector BerliozHector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
- Antonín DvořákAntonín DvorákAntonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
- Permutation (music)Permutation (music)In music, a permutation of a set is any ordering of the elements of that set. Different permutations may be related by transformation, through the application of zero or more of certain operations, such as transposition, inversion, retrogradation, circular permutation , or multiplicative operations...
- Transposition (music)Transposition (music)In music transposition refers to the process, or operation, of moving a collection of notes up or down in pitch by a constant interval.For example, one might transpose an entire piece of music into another key...
- Modulation (music)Modulation (music)In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
- Inversion (music)Inversion (music)In music theory, the word inversion has several meanings. There are inverted chords, inverted melodies, inverted intervals, and inverted voices...
- Retrograde (music)Retrograde (music)A musical line which is the reverse of a previously or simultaneously stated line is said to be its retrograde or cancrizans. An exact retrograde includes both the pitches and rhythms in reverse. An even more exact retrograde reverses the physical contour of the notes themselves, though this is...
- Augmentation (music)Augmentation (music)In Western music and music theory, the word augmentation has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used...
- DiminutionDiminutionIn Western music and music theory, diminution has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series of shorter, usually melodic, values...
- Fragmentation (music)Fragmentation (music)In music composition, fragmentation is the use of fragments or the "division of a musical idea into segments." It is used in tonal and atonal music, and is a common method of localized development and closure....
- Faust SymphonyFaust SymphonyA Faust Symphony in three character pictures , S.108, or simply the "Faust Symphony", was written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and was inspired by Johann von Goethe's drama, Faust...
- Piano Sonata (Liszt)Piano Sonata (Liszt)The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178, is a musical composition for solo piano by Franz Liszt, published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann. It is often considered Liszt's greatest composition for solo piano. The piece has been often analyzed, particularly regarding issues of form.-...
- Symphonic Poems (Liszt)Symphonic Poems (Liszt)The symphonic poems of Franz Liszt are a series of 13 orchestral works by the Hungarian composer and are numbered S.95–107. The first 12 were composed between 1848 and 1858 ; the last, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe , followed in 1882...