Schubert - Der Doppelganger

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Facts.

  • Slow tempo - slow moving harmony/homophony.
  • Bare 5ths.
  • Minor Key.
  • Stepwise - static melody on F#'s.
  • Repetitive - ostinato.
  • Melismatic on some phrases eg. b54-55, but mostly syllabic.
  • Sehr Langsan - very slow.
  • Lied.
  • Low tessitura - both play in the bass clefs (piano) - low in the range of the instrument.
  • Through composed.
  • pp mostly, fff in the climax (b31)
  • Fragmented vocal line.
  • Inner dominant pedal on F#'s for 40 bars.
  • Beginning and ending of every phrase = F#.
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Lied.

  • Art song.
  • Romantic period (dynamics, piano, expression)
  • Expressive piece.
  • Lyrics - German text.
  • Voice and piano (tenor, low tessitura for both.)
  • Close expressive union between music and text (deeper than simple word painting) - Schubert explored particularly deep emotions. 
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Structure.

  • 3 verses to the poem (bars 5, 25 and 43)
  • Music is through composed. 
  • Introduction, 2 brief interludes (b13+14, 23+24) and a postlude. 
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F#.

  • Singer starts to break free from the F#'s in the second verse but remains in the piano.
  • Bar 31 climax - F# followed by chromaticism into next bar.
  • F# is the dominant.
  • Pedal note on F# for 40 bars.
  • Bar 41, F# disappears - voice reaces G (highest notes - words imply the singer realised he sees his Doppelganger - doom).
  • Chromatic progression from B-D# has F# in every chord (modulation to D# minor).
  • Tonic and dominant return in bars 47-50.
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Ending.

  • Last two chords are major - tierce de piccardie.
  • Chromatic lead back to tonic in bar 51 (singers spirit is broken)
  • C major chord is a neopolitan chord - augmented 2nd.
  • Piano postlude
    • plagal cadence
    • tierce de piccardie
    • tonic pedal.
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