Tests of contrasting expressive content between first and second musical themes

ABSTRACT

Since the eighteenth century, music theorists have noted the tendency for Western art-music works to contain themes exhibiting contrasting expressive content. In music exhibiting two main themes, the first theme is commonly characterised as ‘stronger’ or ‘fiery’, whereas the second theme tends to be ‘gentler’ or ‘cantabile’. An examination of 1063 musical works indicates that second themes are less likely to be in the minor mode, but are more likely to be legato, slower in tempo, and involve a quieter dynamic level. Some observations are made regarding changes in the treatment of first and second themes over different stylistic periods.

KEYWORDS:

• Musical themes
• expressive content
• musical style

ORCID

Lindsay A. Warrenburg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3986-4573

Notes

1 This type of statement was seen in writings by Koch (Koch, 1793/1983), Galeazzi (Churgin, 1968), Kollmann (Kollmann, 1799/1973) and Vogler (Newman, 1963).

2 Similar characterizations of second themes can also be seen in writings by Koch (Koch, 1793/1983), Galeazzi (Churgin, 1968) and Kollmann (Kollmann, 1799/1973).

3 This is consistent with Fitts’ law. For more on Fitts’ law, see Huron (2001) and Temperley (2014, pp. 175–176).

4 There are other models of key distance not mentioned in this paper. One example can be seen in Lerdahl (2001).

5 In the Barlow and Morgenstern Dictionary of Musical Themes, there are 935 themes labelled as being in G major and 461 themes labelled as belonging to D minor. There are only 3 themes labelled as being in A# major and 126 themes labelled as being in F# minor.

6 Some of these introductions could be considered to be zero-modules, which Hepokoski and indicate to be a functional part of the subsequent P or S zones (Hepokoski & Darcy, 2006, pp. 72–73). However, some other introductory themes tended to belong to a slow introduction, which was uncategorized by Barlow and Morgenstern.

7 For more information about characteristics of sad music, see the following sources: Paul and Huron (2010), Turner and Huron (2008), Post and Huron (2009), Huron (2008) and Schutz, Huron, Keeton, and Loewer (2008).