Motivational-thematic work

As a motivic and thematic work one is the composition procedure referred to in which a piece of music from a few themes or motifs is developed. To the repetition (for example of leitmotifs ) a modification (processing) must be added so that one can speak of motivic-thematic work. The economy of the motifs used plays a role here: The ideal motivic-thematic work, as it was understood around 1900, should prevent arbitrary, purely decorative phrases by allowing all components of the piece of music to be traced back to a common core that defines their context . - The motivic-thematic work is directed against other, repetitive , improvisational or deliberately fragile composition processes such as montage or collage .

Concept history

Thematic work

The term “thematic work” goes back to the 18th century. In the compositional theories of the time, the term “elaboration” was considered a fundamental category. The German music theorist Johann Mattheson wrote in his melody theory of the three-part sequence of activities inventio (invention), dispositio (establishment) and elaboratio (elaboration), which he had taken from ancient rhetoric . The music critic Johann Adolf Scheibe noted that the term "elaboration" includes all possible forms of the so-called "writing style" with which a work is produced from a main sentence (which contains the inventio ).

A conceptual approximation of the "thematic work" is also done by Scheibe by describing the process of imitation (imitation) with the word "work through". In connection with the division of a main clause in the intermediate clauses, Scheibe speaks of a “working through” of the individual links. However, this is not yet identical to what is considered "thematic work" in the 19th century. The statement by the composer Friedrich August Baumbach from 1794 that, analogous to the writing of a speech, the main task of a composer in music is to “work on” an underlying “main movement”, is factually closely linked to that of Scheibe. Thus, at the end of the 18th century, the connection between the originally rhetorical term “elaboration” and the musical “main movement” provided the basis for the creation of the term “thematic work”.

The music theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch noted in 1802 in the article “Contrapunktisch” of his Musical Lexicon that the term “ contrapuntal ” no longer fully applies to the practice of composition and is better expressed by the expression “the piece is thematically worked out”. Subsequently, other music theorists such as Gustav Schilling (1838), Isidor Jeitteles (1839), Friedrich Ludwig Schubert (1869), August Reissmann (1878) and Hugo Riemann (1882) used the term "thematic processing" or "processing".

Johann Daniel Andersch first used the term “thematic work” in 1829, probably as a substantiation of Koch's phrase “thematically worked”. By the middle of the 19th century, the term became well known in specialist circles and is consistently taken into account in the relevant music lexicons, although Eduard Bernsdorf's definition , for example, contradicts Koch's.

With a treatise on thematic work published in 1844, Johann Christian Lobe gave the impetus for codification in the theory of composition . According to Lobe's theory, the thematic work includes not only melodic-interval remodeling means ( transposition , reversal , expansion / narrowing, etc.), but also technical means (changing harmonization , instrumentation, etc.). This schematism later provoked strong criticism from Riemann. Lobe's theory nevertheless influenced the further development of the term, for example the descriptions by Arrey von Dommer (1865) and Ludwig Bussler (1878). From the aesthetic point of view, the “thematic work” is consistently given praise.

In contrast to the central counterpoint in the Renaissance and Baroque periods , “thematic work” is the central design principle of Viennese classicism . In this respect, the Viennese Classical Theme stands in opposition to the baroque (and older) Soggetto , as it is itself already developed from motifs, while the latter consists of a single melange trait. The thematic work is referred to in connection with Joseph Haydn as the “great invention of the creator and founder of modern music”. Ludwig van Beethoven is generally regarded as the composer of Viennese classicism, who led the motivic-thematic work in his sonatas, quartets and especially his nine symphonies not only absolute and scale imaging Championship, but this within the implementation of the central and dramatically basic constituents of his compositional Created, which remained decisive for compositional posterity (e.g. Johannes Brahms ).

Bussler no longer referred to the contrapuntal style as "dominant", but only regarded it as a "moment of thematic work". Around 1900, Adolf Sandberger weakened the assertion that Haydn had invented this, but credited him with having made an extremely significant contribution to the redefinition of the “long-existing thematic work”. Sandberger describes the thematic work as a “child from the marriage of counterpoint with freedom” and as a previously missing “mediator between strict and free musical design”.

Motivational work

After 1850, as a result of the conceptual distinction between theme and motif , which Adolf Bernhard Marx had made in 1837, the term “motivic work” was coined. As early as 1844, Lobe had described the processing of motifs as “thematic work in the narrower / broader sense” and also mentioned the word “motif work” in the same breath. Riemann criticized praise for his “heresy” as it led to a motivic work that treats the accidental elements of various motifs as motifs themselves; he also stamped Lobe's definition of thematic work as "incomprehensible henchman work". A first well-founded differentiation is offered in 1904 by Guido Adler , who, with reference to Richard Wagner, assigns the motivic work to the music drama and the thematic work to the symphony . With regard to Wagner's leitmotif technique, other authors also speak of motivic or even "leitmotif work".

At the beginning of the 20th century, when Arnold Schönberg and Anton Webern spread new compositional techniques with free atonality , they also gave up traditional thematic and motivic work. In 1924, however, the musicologist Erwin Stein stated that with the twelve-tone technique, the motivic work was again up-to-date in terms of composition, only the rhythmic motif was more important than the melodic motif. At that time, the term “motivic work” was used almost more frequently than “thematic work” in the specialist literature, and by the middle of the 20th century the distinction between the two terms became increasingly indistinct, so that some authors use the term “thematic-motivic work” or "Motivic-thematic work" summarized. As early as 1924, Adler had first spoken of “thematic-motivic work” (without hyphen) and later only exclusively of “thematic-motivic work”, which subsequently spread in specialist circles. In most of the definitions from 1960 to the 21st century, the conceptual historical background against which the terms “motivic” and “thematic work” were merged is rarely dealt with.

literature

• Christoph von Blumröder: Thematic work, motivic work. In: Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Ed.): Concise dictionary of musical terminology. Freiburg im Breisgau 1991.