KronoScope 9.

12 (2009) 6180

www.brill.nl/kron

Narratives of Structural Pacing in

Mozarts String Quartets and Quintets*
Katharina Clausius
kclausiu@uwo.ca

Abstract
The sonata and rondo forms of Mozarts chamber music for strings rely on specific temporalspatial dynamics that evade simple comparison to generic structural models. I rely on
an understanding of the dual interaction of real and musical time, here defined as
musical pacing, in order to examine the role of temporality in the linear narratives
of typical late eighteenth-century forms. The linguistic theory of syntax and paratax
proposed by structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure suggests a critical perspective clarifying the
interdependent dynamics that define Mozartian forms. Within this structuralist context,
the linearity of temporal progression ultimately escapes through musics vertical moment
of resolution. The temporal impulse of Mozarts tonal structures both defines and liberates
itself through his narratives of musical pacing.
Keywords
Mozart, pacing, string quartets / quintets, sonata form, structuralism

The tension between historically-defined structural models and the musical

works they represent inevitably problematizes music analysis, which finds itself
in the ironic position of having to define the exceptional through comparison.
More locally, the same dynamic operates at the level of the individual piece,
as Eduard Hanslick noted in one of the earliest and most influential musical
aesthetics, Von Musikalisch-Schnen (1854):
Wherever the form appears mentally inseparable from the substance there can be no
question of an independent substance (subject) Substance and form, the subject
*)

I would like to thank Edmund J. Goehring, who I hope does not regret the many real
hours spent encouraging a study of fictional time, or as he prefers, sonatas and chimpanzees.
I would also like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewers whose comments clarified my
thoughts on this topic and led to many improvements.

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009

DOI: 10.1163/156771509X12638154745463

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and its working out, the image and the realized conception, are mysteriously blended
in one undecomposable whole.1

Hanslicks insistence on the indivisibility of structure and content, while

persuasive in conceptual terms, presents problems for practical analysis; distinct
musical events form the basis of any discussion of musical form, even while his
whole encompasses both overall form and specific content.2 The problem
perhaps lies in Hanslicks articulation of musics substance, which evokes
structural, linguistic, and visual metaphorsthe works main theme is at once
its substance, subject, and imageyet neglects (or perhaps assumes)
musics temporal dimension. Absent from Hanslicks whole is the framework
(temporal or otherwise) that informs the working out of the subject.
Nearly two centuries after Hanslick, Theodor Adorno addresses musical
analysis in strikingly similar terms: the Whole is itself the relation
between the Whole and its individual moments, within which these latter
obtain throughout their independent value.3 In spite of the historical gap
separating these two critics, both Hanslicks aesthetic and Adornos critical
perspective draw a dynamic picture of musical structure. Paradoxically, the
whole identified by both scholars re-interprets the analysts perennial problem
as the central topic of composition: far from representing an impractical
contradiction in analysis, the dynamic of structural conformity and departure
itself becomes the subject of music and, by extension, the analysts point of
interest.
As well as corroborating Hanslicks theory, Adornos dialectical Whole is
equally vague about the framework for the interaction between form and event,
an interaction that (in music) necessarily relies on time, or in musical terms,
the pacing of events within the duration of the piece. To complicate matters,
the role of temporality in music remains subject to evolving theories of musical
structure and especially to a works historical and compositional context. Karol
Berger in Bachs Cycle, Mozarts Arrow considers temporal transformations in
music from a historical perspective, arguing that the shift from cyclical time in
Eduard Hanslick, The Subject of Music, in The Beautiful in Music, 117127, trans.
Gustav Cohen, ed. Morris Weitz (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, Inc., 1957), 121122.
2)
Musical event requires a flexible definition that encompasses various levels of musical
structure. For example, in a tonal context, event might signify equally a vertical harmonic
occurrence, a phrase, a period, a section (or key area) of sonata form, etc. A specific definition
of event is, therefore, entirely dependent on the musical context.
3)
My emphasis. T.W. Adorno, On the Problem of Musical Analysis, translated by Max
Paddison, Music Analysis (July 1982): 169187, 173.
1)

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Baroque music to the Classicists linear, progressive conception of musical

time represents the origin of musical modernity.4 Focusing on the late
eighteenth-century as the site of this musical revolution, Berger recognizes
Mozart as an ideal representative of the Classical arrow, in part because of
this prodigious composers unique facility with the incorporation of typical
forms in instrumental and vocal genres alike. Bergers historical approach to
the interpretation of structure in Mozarts music illuminates time as a formal
component. Using terminology reminiscent of both Hanslick and Adorno,
Berger describes temporality as a mediator between the musical event in
Mozart and the work as a whole: In a Mozart movement an event can
be understood only if one knows where in the temporal order it occurs.5
Bergers reference to sequential time, in his words the temporal order of the
piece, hints at musics parallel temporal landscapea double time in which
measured events, themselves occupying prolonged moments, fill a perpetual,
uninterrupted linear temporality.
An examination of dual temporality suggests a hierarchical structural model
in which time, conceived spatially, facilitates the composers exploration of
musical form. As Berger argues, Mozarts works represent a useful point
of departure for an analysis of a fully developed modern approach to
temporality.6 Significantly, Hanslick and Adornos concern with dynamic
musical structure and Bergers interest in linear, progressive musical narratives
converge on a prototypical structuralist model. Ferdinand de Saussures axes of
simultaneities and successions encapsulate the Adornian structural dialectic
between conformity and divergence and clarify the role of temporal pacing
in Mozarts string quartets and quintets.7 First, however, a brief discussion of
theories of musical time will establish the interactive framework that supports
instrumental forms.

4)

His full title is Bachs Cycle, Mozarts Arrow: An Essay on the Origins of Musical Modernity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
5)
Ibid., 8.
6)
Ibid., 10.
7)
I focus on Mozarts chamber music for strings because, as Charles Rosen points out,
only the string quartet and the keyboard instrument allowed the composer to speak the
language of classical tonality with ease and freedom, and the keyboard had the disadvantage
of less striking linear clarity than the string quartet. I have selected three representative,
mature works (K. 387, K. 515, K. 614) written during the composers final decade (1782
1791). See below for a fuller discussion. Charles Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart,
Beethoven, expanded edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997), 287.

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Pacing and Delineation of Form

Music presents unique structural (and narrative) possibilities since musical
form engages with two temporal surfaces: the real time that music occupies
during its performance and the conceptual time that exists in our perception of the works internal organization.8 Musical performance epitomizes
this temporal relationship, which persists as a tension between musics internal temporal flexibility and the continuous linear time the piece inhabits.
Susanne K. Langer, in Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art, describes the conceptual time of music as virtual time, calling this temporality the primary
illusion of music.9 However, conceptual and virtual only imprecisely
capture the vibrant temporal dynamic that is musics subjecta dynamic
that cannot distinguish so stringently between an absolute and illusory
time.
The concept of pacing better represents the point of convergence between
the two temporalities at work in music. Invoking the velocity of musical
time accurately describes musics audible structures. This temporal model
usefully depicts a dynamic that modulates between real, predictable time
and divergent, virtual time, an interaction that serves as a practical model
for evaluating musical form; through a parallel study of pacing and form,
an analytical methodology emerges that relies on external, fixed, formal
schemata only insofar as these clarify the internal, dynamic time of the pieces
structure. This adaptable dependence on pre-conceived musical structures
(such as sonata form) is the key to good music analysis, which Adorno defines
as a concern with structure, one that examines the complex relationship
of deviation to schema.10 More than providing a compatible model for
structuralist analysis, musical pacing plays an active and immediate role in the
8)

St. Augustine argues that time exists only as a mental synthesis, since it exists in a
continuous, immeasurable present moment. I use the phrase conceptual time to describe
the flexible temporality made possible by the imaginative intellect. See St. Augustine, Time
and Eternity, in The Confessions of St. Augustine, 285302, translated by John K. Ryan (New
York: Doubleday, 1960), 301. Jonathan D. Kramer makes a detailed study of various types
of time in his Music and Time: New Meanings, New Temporalities, New Listening Strategies
(New York: Schirmer Books, 1988). However, whereas Kramers focus is the linear time of
traditional tonal music versus the nonlinear stasis of contemporary music, my discussion
concentrates on the goal-directed, structural pacing of eighteenth-century tonal music.
9)
Susanne K. Langer, Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art (New York: Charles Scribners
Sons, 1953).
10)
Adorno, On the Problem of Musical Analysis, 173.

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delineation of form. In eighteenth-century tonal music, this form continually

emphasizes progress toward resolution. As Joan Stambaugh notes, what is
essential is not the concrete uninterrupted time in which the action takes
place, but rather the directedness of the action itself.11 Musical pacing,
therefore, represents measured movement (that is, slower or faster) toward
the works tonal close; rather than drawing unnecessary conclusions regarding
the realness of musical time, pacing describes temporality in musical terms.
Here, too, musicologists look to eighteenth-century composers for examples
of temporal treatment. As Raymond Monelle remarks in his The Sense of
Music,
the eighteenth century joined the present to the past in the form of memory, by
placing these sensations in a frame in which time passes. Here, then, in the duality of
intensified present and past memory, we find the temporal bichrony of the eighteenth
century.12

Although Monelles theory grows out of a semiotic study, his conclusion tallies
with Bergers historical account of the move toward linear, progressive time in
Mozarts Classical works.
The basis for this new interest in the direction, or arrow, of a composition
is its tonal framework. Tonal music presents a precise sequence of structural
elements (defined by particular key areas), the ordering of which is oriented
towards the tonic; thus, the musical progression continually anticipates
resolution. Of course, Classicism is not unique in its preoccupation with key
structures and resolution; however, late eighteenth-century forms rely more
heavily on an exact linear ordering of musical events than, for instance, Baroque
fugal techniques. Berger addresses the historical innovation of Classical
temporality in a passage worth quoting at length:
The assumption is, simply, that in music the temporal order in which events occur
always matters. There can be little doubt that it does matter in the Viennese sonata
genres. The disposition of events in a sonata (or string quartet, symphony, concerto),
the temporal order in which they appear, is essential: to tamper with it is to drastically
change, or destroy, the meaning of the work To experience such works with
understanding one has to register, however dimly, that the material being developed has
earlier been exposed, or that what is now being recapitulated has already, in some form,
Joan Stambaugh, Music as a Temporal Form, The Journal of Philosophy (April 1964):
265280, 265.
12)
Raymond Monelle, The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000), 96.
11)

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been heard before This much is obvious. What is less obvious is that not all music
works this way. The Viennese classics have shaped our musical expectations and values
to such an extent that we expect these values to inform any music we encounter.13

As with a theatrical drama, the listeners experience of the Classical work

is directed through the organization of particular events in time, and the
composers integration of these events constitutes the specific formal dynamic
of the work. Berger usefully points to the importance of the listeners
familiarity with standard structures such as sonata form. The collection of
compositional decisions working either with or against the form anticipated
by the audience is the unique structural narrative of a piece, one that dictates
the listeners understanding of the music. Thus, a works structural narrative
is synonymous with the flexible pacing of the musical events within the
duration of the compositionthe specific narrative of each piece. As Berger
suggests, Mozarts works clearly serve as exemplars of this new compositional
methodology.
Pacing and Texture
An examination of the structural narratives (pacing) in Mozarts string quartets
and quintets is especially rewarding for several reasons. Most importantly, his
chamber works oer a plethora of sonata-form movementseach singular in
its specific realizationthat demonstrate the linearity Berger ascribes to this
form in particular. Charles Rosen emphasizes the originality of dramaticallyconceived instrumental works, writing that the fundamental and imaginative
vision of chamber music [is] as dramatic action.14 Furthermore, as
exclusive, non-functional, private pieces, these chamber works oer the composer an intimate medium in which to experiment with and exploit musical
subtleties. W. Dean Sutclie remarks that Mozarts string quartets and quintets,
removed from both the public and the theatrical, are a particularly suitable
locale for [such] game playing. As a notionally non-public genre, there
can be no sense of a realistic minuet for a social occasion.15 The string
quartet and quintet thus oer a transparency that Mozart exploits for astonBerger, Bachs Cycle, Mozarts Arrow, 78.
Rosen, The Classical Style, 287.
15)
W. Dean Sutclie, Haydn, Mozart and their contemporaries, in The Cambridge
Companion to the String Quartet, 185209, edited by Robin Stowell (Cambridge, Mass.:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 189.
13)
14)

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ishing textural variety. The physical arrangement of the instruments within

each works sonic space introduces a vertical dimension that complements the
linear, temporal one of Mozarts sonata forms.
The dierences in instrumental texture become integral to the structural
narrative of each string quartet or quintet. Textural contrast in this context does
not refer exclusively to the number of instruments but to the listeners changing
perception of sound, which is based on dynamics, register, harmonic rhythm,
melodic contour, etc. Cli Eisen describes these works as kaleidoscopic in
their exploitation of textural contrast.16 This emphasis on the polyphonic
arrangement of the instrumental parts points to the dual participation of the
linear (temporal sequence of musical events) and the vertical (instrumental
texture) in the structural dynamics of each individual work. Texture here
represents a spatial quality in music in that each instrument is read (in the score)
and heard (in performance) as a linear voice. Together, these distinct lines
interact within the sonic space of the piece in a relationship that approaches
that of virtual and real time. As Roger Scruton puts it,
there is no real space of sounds; but there is a phenomenal space of tones. It is modeled
on the phenomenal space of everyday perceptionthe space in terms of which we
orientate ourselves. It has up and down, height and depth; its single dimension is
understood not only geometrically but also in terms of eort and motion.17

The relative textural clarity inherent in chamber music (with its limited number
of instruments) is a practical medium for an analysis of the structural narratives
of musical pacing and instrumental texture. Indeed, Mozart frequently uses
vertical orchestration to delineate the musical pacing that produces a unique
dramatic tension between form and flexibility.
The first movement of Mozarts string quintet K. 614 exemplifies this technique. Throughout the exposition, Mozart consistently manipulates musical
pacing through contrasting textures in order to define the sections of the sonata
form. For instance, he marks the transition from the initial key area (Eb+) to
the secondary theme by thickening the instrumentation to accelerate toward
the arrival of the dominant key area (Figure 1).
16)
Eisen refers here specifically to Mozarts string quintets; however, his comments are
equally true of the string quartets. Cli Eisen, Mozart and the Viennese String Quartet,
in Mozarts Streichquintette: Betrge zum musikalischen Satz, zum Gattungskontext und zu
Quellenfragen, 127151, edited by Cli Eisen and Wolf-Dieter Seiert (Stuttgart: Steiner,
1994), 138.
17)
Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 75.

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Figure 1. String Quintet in Eb+, K. 614: I (Allegro di molto)

In these measures, Mozart expands the musical texture to create a fuller

sonic space; the continuous sixteenth-notes in the cello, the contrapuntal
imitation ascending from viola II to violin I, and the increasingly dense
polyphonic texture all initiate a concentrated vertical space that vigorously
anticipates the arrival of the dominant key. However, Mozart subsequently
sustains this forward momentum through reduced texture and deceleration
preceding the second theme area (Figure 2). Following the climatic applied
dominant arrival, a thinner homophonic texture emerges; the first violin
articulates a descending sequence accompanied by increasingly sparse chords
in the other four instruments. Finally, the solo violin plays a transitional scalar
figure, smoothly ascending to the second themes opening figure (bar 39).

Figure 2. String Quintet in Eb+, K. 614: I (Allegro di molto)

This gradual textural reduction slows the musical velocity so that the second
themes beginning is clearly articulated; the theme arrives and therefore also
emerges as a new point of departure, of motion forward. Mozart recreates

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Figure 3. String Quintet in Eb+, K. 614: I (Allegro di molto)

this same musical narrative of pacing at the close of the exposition (Figure 3).
The final phrase before the codetta (or closing area) features a rapidly rising
violin figure against descending ornaments in the cello. The first violins
conventional pre-cadential grace-notes and trill, combined with the fast
sixteenths in the middle instruments and forte dynamic, all intensify the
overall musical texture and accelerate towards the phrases resolution (measure
78). However, like the unexpected violin solo before the appearance of the
second theme, Mozart thins the texture just prior to the cadence. He thus
prepares simultaneously for a dramatic return of the movements stable, familiar
opening theme as well as for the ambiguous, fragmented development section.
Throughout the entire exposition then, Mozarts textural nuances articulate a
dramatic narrative by quickening and slowing the musical pace toward points
of climax and resolution.
In other words, the temporal relationships that Mozart articulates using
sequential instrumental textures in this movement help to shape the sonata
form. Furthermore, in recycling the same temporal contour of accelerationdeceleration in transitional sections, Mozart plainly discerns two formal
categories: transitional and sectional. Thus established, this dichotomy between
transitional and sectional material represents a structural hierarchy conforming
to traditional sonata form, yet articulates this form through a unique temporal
progression, or narrative.

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Temporal Revitalization
In more abstract terms, Scruton argues that it is through its spatialization that
temporality (or, in musical terms, pacing) becomes imminent and audible:
The spatializing of the temporal order is also a release from it: we are granted
a sensuous intimation of something that we can otherwise grasp only in
thought.18 Scruton rightly emphasizes the importance of an audible musical,
temporal structure. Since a Mozartian structure is synonymous with the flexible
pacing of musical events within the duration of the work, the spatial aspect
of the composers polyphonic instrumentation becomes the means through
which the audience grasps the pieces formal narrative. However, musics
main subject remains the relationship between substance and form, in
Hanslicks wordsa hypothesis that is substantiated by Mozarts use of pacing
in his string quintet K. 515.
The final movement of this work explores the dramatic tension between
formal constraint and innovation. Here, Mozart directs the dynamic of
musical time and space towards the revitalization of structural repetitions.
This movements rondo form provides an especially fertile ground for this
type of structural narrative. Like sonata form, the rondo encompasses both
contrasting key and theme areas that function as recapitulations, variations,
or developments. In this movement, Mozart consistently manipulates musical
pacing in order to reinvigorate each reappearance of the A section (the rondos
refrain), which itself features two statements of the main theme in a compound
ABA ternary form. As in the transitional sections of K. 614, Mozart slows the
musical progress immediately before the return of the refrain, using the simplest
textural techniques (Figure 4). The extended violin solo in bars 3641 ascends
chromatically and links the end of the previous phrase with the return of section
A. Janet M. Levy, in her semiotic examination of instrumental texture, remarks
that a solo is altogether less controlled and predictable virtually anything
can happen to, or against it.19 Mozarts violin solo, therefore, signals an
impending structural event. The monophonic instrumentation and chromatic
motion create tonal and metric ambiguity, thus reducing the musical texture
(or sonic space) and slowing the musical pacing.

Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music, 75.

Janet M. Levy, Texture as a Sign in Classic and Early Romantic Music, Journal of the
American Musicological Society (Autumn 1982): 482531, 526.
18)
19)

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71

Figure 4. String Quintet in C+, K. 515: IV (Allegro)

The repetition of the refrain is necessarily retrospective, but Mozarts careful

deceleration reinvigorates the repetition by emphasizing its return and thereby
avoids arresting the progression of the music. In a similar passage, Mozart
writes a more elaborate, elongated textural reduction leading up to the return
of the complete refrain following the B section (Figure 5). A full 21 bars
of static harmony, alternating between tonic and dominant, culminate in a

Figure 5. String Quintet in C+, K. 515: IV (Allegro)

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rising scalar figure that repeats at the octave. Such circular harmony, melody,
and sequence virtually stop forward motion. The homophonic texture and
staccato motives contribute to the sense of diminished musical space because
the instrumentation sounds lighter. The retransition culminates ambiguously;
the violins articulate the scalar motive in a high register demanding resolution;
the subsequent bar of rest only intensifies this instability.
Aside from the marvellous comic eect of the refrains abrupt reappearance
(the violins high F in bar 210 remains unresolved), the suddenness of
its arrival once again refocuses the listeners attention on the beginning
of the A section rather than on melodic familiarity. Mozart transforms
redundant reiteration into structural progression. In this way, the otherwise
problematically repetitive rondo form is reinvigorated through unexpected,
and therefore unconventional, structural twists.
Interestingly, this second statement of the A section is followed by an F+
transposition of the main theme (Figure 6). This diversion to the subdominant
key is not prepared by the deceleration that preceded earlier returns of
the refrain. Instead, in the transition towards this new key area, Mozart
accelerates the pacing. A series of bright, forte, descending scale passages
in the first violin are punctuated by accompanying chords. The final four
bars of the transition feature a faster harmonic rhythm and an expanding
registeral space between the instruments. The final dominant (C+) chords
oer a resounding, firm cadence. The refrains appearance in the next bar, in
the wrong key, therefore seems particularly strange and unprepared; despite

Figure 6. String Quintet in C+, K. 515: IV (Allegro)

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73

retaining a familiar tonic-dominant relationship, the modulation to F+ disrupts

convention and again introduces a comic eect.
Thus, the dynamic between instrumental texture and pacing delineates
Mozarts departures from formal conventions by emphasizing innovative tonal
events. Ironically, Mozart exploits the structural hierarchy of rondo form, in
which the refrain continually repeats, in order simultaneously to destabilize and
arm tonal and sectional events. The concluding bars of the quintets finale
clarify Mozarts innovative structural narrative, one that plays with horizontal
and vertical dimensions at various structural levels.
Several false returns of the refrain follow its partial appearance in F+, and
despite formal conventions, Mozart never again oers the listener a complete
return of section A. However, the final phrases of the movement incorporate
some of the melodys main motives as cadential gestures in the first violin
(Figure 7). Integrated into the movements final bars, the main motive of the
refrain no longer signals the beginning of the A section but rather becomes
part of the horizontal melodic syntax. Mozart first establishes the melody as a
structural event by clearly dierentiating between sections and then integrates
this large-scale syntax into the more local melodic phrase. The fluid correlation
of horizontal temporality and vertical space involves multiple structural levels
and permits Mozart flexibility within strict formal constraints.
String Quartets / Quintets and Structuralism
Thus, Mozarts innovative interest in time and space is directed towards the
articulation of a tension between structure and flexibility. Berger theatricalizes
this issue, writing that
Mozarts form [is] not a rigid mold but a flexible recipe with a few indispensable
ingredients and procedures a commedia dell arte scenario, which prescribes a few
indispensable events and their order but leaves the artists at liberty to flesh out the plot
with optional additional incidents in rule-governed improvisation.20

Bergers ingredients reference the customary rules or events within the

specific musical structure; Mozarts compositional decisions are made with
or against these conventions. Significantly, Bergers recipe emphasizes preexisting, generic ingredients. This interpretation suggests another analytical
theory that evokes a similar recipe analogy; however, in stark contrast to
20)

Berger, Bachs Cycle, Mozarts Arrow, 191.

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Figure 7. String Quintet in C+, K. 515: IV (Allegro)

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75

Bergers historical, cultural perspective, this second methodology accentuates

the active relationship inherent in compositional choice.
The linear-vertical interaction between pacing and vertical instrumentation
in Mozarts works finds a parallel in the French structuralist model of linguistic
syntax and paratax developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Cours de
linguistique gnrale (published posthumously in 1916). Despite the historical
and methodological dierences separating Saussure and Hanslicks structural
interests, the formers dynamic linguistic theory helpfully resolves the practical
obstacle inherent in Hanslicks indissoluble subject. Saussure plots the double
interaction between and among categories of linguistic signs on an axis of
simultaneities and successions:21

Significantly, Saussure articulates this relationship in temporal terms, writing

that
distinctions should be made between (1) the axis of simultaneities (AB) which
stands for the relations of coexisting things and from which the intervention of time is
excluded; and (2) the axis of successions (CD), on which only one thing can be considered
at a time but upon which are located all things on the first axis together with their
changes.22

In linguistic terms, the paradigmatic relationship (axis CD) describes a language

system, one that changes over time; the axis therefore encompasses the systems
historical transformations, even while Saussure insists that parataxis is only fully
present for analysis in the single moment of its study. This temporally-defined
21)

Ferdinand de Saussure, Nature of the Linguistic Sign, in Contemporary Critical Theory,

216, translated by Wade Baskin, edited by Dan Latimer (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc., 1989), 15. While his theory is frequently conflated with semiotics, my
interest in Saussure is as a structuralist and linguistic theorist. See David H. Richters
introductory comments to Saussures text for a discussion of the two movements divergence.
Richter, Structuralism, in The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends,
Second Edition, 809814 (Boston: Bedford Books, 1998), ft. 810.
22)
Saussure, Nature of the Linguistic Sign, 15.

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axis reflects a hierarchical arrangement of the categories of language; in musical

terms, these categories would reflect typical structural elements (including all
their variations) such as the exposition, transition, and development sections
in sonata form.23 Visually, Saussure draws the CD axis as an arrow intersecting
the AB axis at a single pointhistorical change continues beyond the graph,
but may only be captured in one arbitrary moment. Saussure captures the
linearity of linguistic syntax through a horizontal, syntagmatic AB axis.
While this syntaxis is not historically-defined, Saussure draws attention to
its temporal paradox: AB stands for the relations of coexisting things, which
are defined by the moment of study prescribed by the historical CD axis.
The point of intersection of the axes thus identifies their compatibility as a
temporal one. Musically, Mozarts specific syntax, or arrangement of sonata
sections, is bound up in his compositional choice of CD categories. Similar
to Bergers pre-existing, generic ingredients, Saussures parataxis defines
categories historically, flexibly. Mozarts innovative variations on sonata form
contribute to historical tradition (the CD axis) even as they draw on it. David
H. Richter proposes an analogy for Saussures paradigmatic line that resembles
Bergers recipe and accentuates the importance of compositional choice:
An example of parataxis is the relationship of items on a menu: In ordering soup,
one may choose the beef consomm or the lobster bisque or the clam chowder. The
items are similar enough to belong to one category (soups) yet dierent (in their
ingredients).24

Thus, Saussures structuralist model clarifies Hanslicks undecomposable

whole by presenting two distinct yet interdependent axes, and he simultaneously corroborates Adornos interest in the specific manifestation of generic
rules through a historically-based hierarchy of structural categories.
In terms of musical temporality, Saussures paradigmatic relationship approaches the real time against which the syntactical, virtual time of the work
emerges; together, parataxis and syntaxis, real and virtual time, collaborate
to open a temporal moment for analysis that in music may be measured
as pacing. The following diagram clarifies the various related (though not
synonymous) Saussurian concepts associated with each axis as well as the
musical manifestation of each:
23)

Like the concept of musical event, however, structural categories occur at various
levels. For instance, chords represent a more detailed structural category than the key
areas they help to establish.
24)
Richter, Structuralism, 811.

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Ultimately, Saussures axes spatialize the fundamental linguistic relationships, thereby liberating both parataxis and syntaxis from abstract theory and
recalling Scrutons argument that the spatialization of musics otherwise intangible temporality permits a practical examination of time in music. Indeed,
Mozarts string quartet K. 387 oers an explicitly temporal-spatial discussion
of musical structure personified by two stylistic textures: fugal counterpoint of
the Baroque period and Classical gallant homophony.
The finale of K. 387 features perhaps the most extreme opposition of formal
model and compositional originality among Mozarts string works. The contrasting instrumental textures exemplify Bergers observations about Baroque
cyclical and Classical linear time and complicate the movements sonata form
by obscuring section divisions. The movement opens with a four-voice fugal
exposition featuring a rising semitone that conceals the works G+ tonality (see
the C#-D in measures 45). A syncopated countersubject contributes to the
dense polyphony, while each subject entry propels the music forward only by
anticipating subsequent statements of the main theme (Figure 8).
Although the circular motion of this polyphonic phrase exhibits the circular time Berger ascribes to Baroque fugal textures generally, Mozart immediately establishes a thematic contrast that puts the temporal dierence between
the two styles into question. Mozart abruptly transforms this repetitive fugal
texture into a melodically linear, yet harmonically static homophonic theme.
Francesco Galeazzis 1796 definition of a typical introduction confirms that
Mozart intentionally departs from conventional models: The Introduction is
nothing but a preparation for the true Motive of a composition.25 Comically,
25)

Quoted in Bathia Churgin, Francesco Galeazzis Description (1796) of Sonata Form,

Journal of the American Musicological Society (Summer 1968): 181199, 190.

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the learned, driven fugal style serves as introduction to the harmonicallyuncomplicated, melodically-simple main theme. Although in Bergers typical
Baroque work, the meaning of any given event does not essentially depend
on its temporal position within the movement,26 Mozart contextualizes his
introductory fugue by juxtaposing the anticipation generated by the growing
polyphonic density with a flat, textually inert theme in the first violin. Baroque
vertical polyphony here achieves a momentum that eludes the otherwise more
linear Classical theme; far from espousing an opposition between Baroque
circular and Classical linear time, Mozart here distributes temporal energy
dierently, but equally.

Figure 8. String Quartet in G+, K. 387: IV (Molto Allegro)

Furthermore, in contrast to Galeazzis assertion that a main theme dominates

the composition, Mozart incorporates both circular and linear themes equally
throughout the movement, prolonging the tension between styles and temporal
projections. Far from dominating the exposition, the homophonic theme
gives way to a double fugue, the movements second theme, which becomes
increasingly dense as subjects are layered with freely contrapuntal lines
(Figure 9). The cello first states the subject, which is then imitated by each
instrument, ascending through the voices and propelling the music toward the
fugal theme.
In keeping with the opposition established in the exposition, the second
theme comes to an abrupt, almost grinding, halt in measure 90 (Figure 10).
The closing theme that follows is almost a comic representation of the gallant
style with a lyrical, playful melody in the violin, supported by a slow harmonic
rhythm of tonic and dominant harmonies.
26)

Berger, Bachs Cycle, Mozarts Arrow, 8.

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Figure 9. String Quartet in G+, K. 387: IV (Molto Allegro)

Figure 10. String Quartet in G+, K. 387: IV (Molto Allegro)

Despite such extreme stylistic contrasts, Mozart continually associates each

sudden change with a traditional section of sonata form. The paradigmatic
categories of sonata sections therefore interact syntagmatically, in relative
relation to one another, to create a dramatic, comic structural narrative. The
markedly dierent musical styles simultaneously emphasize the formal sections
they almost destabilize.
The movements final phrase embodies this synthesis of dissimilar textures,
paces, and sections (Figure 11). The fugal subject that opened the movement is
reiterated by the first violin, not in a fugal texture, but harmonized homophonically by the other three instruments. Unlike the melodic reinterpretations of
the rondo theme in K. 614, where Mozart integrates the refrains theme into
the syntactical, horizontal organization of the movement, his string quartets
fugal subject is resolved paradigmatically through harmony. Neither fugue nor
homophony prevails in these final bars. Instead, the Baroque thematic circularity discards the vertical momentum of sequential subject statements and gains

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Figure 11. String Quartet in G+, K. 387: IV (Molto Allegro)

a tonal trajectory toward a linear, harmonic resolution. Likewise, a homophonic texture continues to feature the first violin, but the melody achieves a
harmonic gravitas and prolonged pacing that punctuates the solemnity of this
final gesture.
Thus, Mozart involves both the linear and vertical dimensionsmelody
and harmony, pacing and texturein the meaningful synthesis of two divergent styles. In structuralist terms, the final phrase of the quartet represents
the moment of axial intersection, accentuating both the syntagmatic and
paradigmatic relationships of Mozarts musical language; Hanslicks undecomposable whole emerges as the product of distinct, yet ultimately compatible, temporal visions. The harmonization of the fugal subject is Mozarts
spatialization of musical pacing, out of which musical temporality is liberated from its own imperative to progress toward resolution. Pacing, defined
by its distance to resolution, dissolves at the point of arrival at its objective;
the same gesture that restores the collaboration of instrumentation and tonal
progress renders the underlying temporal process obsolete. While Mozart
accomplishes a musical conclusion satisfying synthetic melodic and harmonic
requirements, the gap between pacings momentum and its finite impetus
defies closure. Rather, pacing resists attending the climactic instant of simultaneity to which it would surrender its dynamic role; Mozart guards linear
progression against the passive role of temporal agent that is merely retired
at the point of musical closure. Music foregoes the gesture of absolute unification in order to preserve its own primary temporal vibrancy. The spatial
moment of resolution emerges as the consequence of pacing, a consequence
that paradoxically secures the sequential by assuming a retrospective stance.
Pacing anticipates a conclusion that remembers, and thus defers to, its trajectory.

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