Robert Fuchs as Kleinmeister with specific reference to developing variation in his Piano Trio, Op. 22

Abstract

In accordance with the notion of the so-called “new musicology” that musicological studies should steer away from the canon of masterpieces, this study concentrates on Robert Fuchs as an example of a Kleinmeister. His Piano Trio in C major, Op. 22, is a demonstration of developing variation, a term coined by Arnold Schoenberg to refer to the technique of motivic development within a musical composition as a whole. According to Schoenberg, the music of Johannes Brahms illustrates the most advanced manifestation of developing variation in that he often starts to develop his motives from the very opening of a piece. The technique of developing variation became one solution to the key problem composers faced in the later nineteenth century, namely how to create large forms from very concise thematic material. The purpose of this study is, firstly, to describe the concept of developing variation, providing** a historical perspective with specific reference to Brahms, and, secondly, to trace the manifestation of developing variation in Robert Fuchs‟s Piano Trio in C major, Op. 22, a work which Fuchs dedicated to Brahms. The empirical section of this study shows that the characteristic feature of the germ cell (G-A-G) that appears at the beginning of this composition, namely a movement away from and a return to the point of departure, manifests on micro- (motivic), meso- (thematic), and macro- (structural) level. On micro-level the germ cell grows teleologically by means of metric displacement, rhythmic changes, augmentation, diminution, intervallic expansion, inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, extension, sequential treatment, liquidation and further derivatives of the germ cell until a large form is created: a four-movement work for three instruments. This study also demonstrates how the shape of the germ cell can be found in larger structures as themes and the overall structure of each of the four movements.