The Musical Topic in the Twentieth Century: A Case Study of Schoenberg’s Ironic Waltzes

johanna frymoyer

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Although scholars frequently invoke the language of topic theory to underpin expressive claims about
modernist repertory, the stylistic mechanism that facilitates the perception of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century topics in early-twentieth-century repertory remains undertheorized. Focusing on
Schoenberg’s use of the waltz topic, this article proposes that topics be understood as hierarchic arrays
of essential, frequent, and idiomatic characteristics, thus making explicit the terms of topical identifi-
cation. By also enabling relative degrees of topical identification, this apparatus can help temper the
interpretive and expressive claims attributed to topical appearances in modernist repertory. Special
consideration is given to Schoenberg’s ironic treatment of waltzes.

Keywords: Arnold Schoenberg, Robert Hatten, irony, march, minuet, topic, waltz, Op. 7, Op.
10, Op. 23, Op. 24.

L
eonard Ratner’s theory of musical topics has been
dubbed “one of the success stories of modern musicol-
ogy.”1 Ratner’s brief observations about a lexicon of
musical “common places” in the late eighteenth century
spawned a branch of “soft” semiotics,2 laying the groundwork
for the innovative interpretive insights of Kofi Agawu, Wye
Jamison Allanbrook, Robert Hatten, and Elaine Sisman.3
Now thirty years later, the language of musical topics has ex-
tended beyond Ratner’s eighteenth-century emphasis and per-
meated the discourse of later repertories as well. Marta
Grabocz and Nicholas McKay have offered theorized
approaches to topics in the music of Liszt, Bartok, and
Stravinsky.4 Jessica Narum, in an extended treatment of
Schoenberg, uses topics to infuse existing analytic approaches
to leitmotif, pitch sets, form, and narrative with greater expres-
sive potential.5 The starting point for this study, however, are
those instances of untheorized or seemingly “subconscious” ap-
propriations of topical language into the analytic discourse of
early-twentieth-century repertory. Walter Frisch identifies
“march topoi” in works of Reger, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg.6
Peter Hill makes reference to fanfares, hunt calls, and marches
in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Even Adorno, though predating
Ratner’s writings, describes four of the movements in
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of
the AMS/SMT, Indianapolis, IN, November 2010, and parts of this arti-
cle appear in the author’s dissertation (Frymoyer 2012). The author is
grateful to Kofi Agawu, Scott Burnham, Christopher Gupta, and two
anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
1 Caplin (2005, 113).
2 The term “soft” semiotics derives from Agawu (1999, 154).
3 Agawu (1991); Allanbrook (1983); Hatten (1994); Hatten (2004); Ratner
(1980); Sisman (1993). For a broader overview of the history of the the-
ory, see McKay (2007); Mirka (2014).
4 Grabocz (1987); Grabocz (1996); Grabocz (2002); McKay (1998);
McKay (2003).
5 Narum (2013).
6 Frisch (2008, 234).
Schoenberg’s Suite, Op. 25 as “actually and unmistakably from
the old treasure trove of types (Typenschatz).”7
The problem with these casual topical identifications is that
the conventions that facilitate interpretive connections are left
unstated, thus leaving unexplored the stylistic framework that
underpins such readings. For example, in his reading of a
march topos at the beginning of Stravinsky’s Octet that goes
“metrically askew” after several measures, Walter Frisch writes,
“if this is not an ironic march—a march about marches, or a
march in the second or third degree—then I do not know
what one would be.”8 Frisch compounds layers of interpreta-
tion in his statement without clearly distinguishing first how
the march is recognizable in an atonal and metrically irregular
context and second how the conventions of the march are cir-
cumvented. If one pauses to consider the analytic presump-
tions that underlie and enable recognition of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century topics in twentieth-century repertory, a
host of fascinating, though challenging, questions emerge. For
example, given the radically different harmonic and rhythmic
practices of the early twentieth century, how does a listener
even identify a topic with origins in the Classic or early
Romantic styles? The problem is only further complicated
when issues of stylistically informed meaning are taken into
consideration. Although Stravinsky’s metrically distorted
march may be ironic, given the composer’s propensity for met-
ric irregularity, wouldn’t a “well-behaved” march in his oeuvre
also be marked, if not ironic? Can there be a stylistic norm or
a hermeneutically inert token of a topic in twentieth-century
repertory? Without considering the complexities of such signi-
fiers in the post-tonal repertory, references to topics in mod-
ernist repertory invite the sort of “dismay” that Susan McClary
7 “Vier, Gavotte, Musette, Menuett und Gigue, kommen wirklich und unver-
kennbar aus dem alten Typenschatz; die Gavotte wird nach der Musette, das
Menuett nach dem Trio, einem kunstvollen zweistimmigen Kanon, tonge-
treu wiederholt” (Adorno 1984, 424–25). Translation by the author.
8 Frisch (2008, 234).

83
 84 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)
describes when she likens the topic theorist to the art critic
who “explicate[s] Picasso’s Guernica by proudly identifying the
‘horsie,’ without somehow noticing the creature’s anguished
grimace or the other figures on the canvas.”9
This article introduces an explicit model for describing the
relationships between constituent textures, gestures, rhythms,
and motives of topics based on their essential, frequent, and
idiomatic appearances in tokens of the topic. Elucidating the
relationships between the diverse parametric characteristics
that contribute to a topical identity allows the analyst to distin-
guish between vague allusions to a topic versus full-fledged ap-
pearances of the topic. More importantly, by recognizing what
a normative appearance of a topic in modernist repertory
sounds like, the analyst can temper interpretive claims appro-
priately. Following Raymond Monelle’s well-received study of
the historical and literary origins of musical topoi, recent
scholarship in topic theory has emphasized historically rigorous
studies that reveal the literal origins of topics.10 But the key
distinction between a topic and its expressive referent is the
process by which such real-world sounds are decontextualized
and abstracted for generic reference within an art music con-
text.11 I argue that this hierarchy of essential, frequent, and
idiomatic characteristics illustrates this process of abstraction
and helps articulate how topics signify through correlation
rather than imitation or quotation. The hierarchy also helps
recognize how certain topics, whose essential features are
adaptable to many stylistics contexts, can enjoy particular lon-
gevity. While the theoretical framework I propose is straight-
forward, in my extended treatment of Schoenberg’s waltzes, I
will demonstrate the far-reaching implications of the method
for more discerning and nuanced interpretations of topics in
modernist repertory.
One further complication must be addressed before em-
barking on the theoretical underpinnings of twentieth-century
topics. When scholars refer to dances in twentieth-century
repertory, several referential frameworks may be invoked. First
and foremost, a dance such as a minuet or a waltz may be a
fully worked out piece with a functional purpose. That is to
say, it is an instrumental composition for the purpose of danc-
ing. These functional pieces, however, may be transported to
concert venues and infused with more virtuosic or harmoni-
cally interesting elements. For example, the late-eighteenth-
century minuet maintained the formal structure of the
functional minuet but became integrated into the interior
dance movement of the Classic symphony. The waltz likewise
became an independent virtuosic salon genre in the hands of
Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms. In these art contexts, form
and virtuosity are more complex than in the functional context,
yet the gestural content drawn from the functional genre may
9 McClary (2001, 326).
10 Monelle (2006).
11 Danuta Mirka offers a similar definition of topics when she describes
them as “musical styles and genres taken out of their proper context and
used in another one” (2014, 2).
be simplified and broadened to “signal” the dance in the con-
cert hall or salon.12 At this point, a topic emerges as a self-
standing entity that may signal the dance without necessarily
relying on title, genre, or context for that signification.13
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Herein lies a further layer of complexity in interpreting
topics in twentieth-century repertory: when a scholar hears a
“waltz,” does this refer to the functional waltz, the salon genre,
or the topic in its chamber, orchestral, and operatic manifesta-
tions in art music? In my close readings of existing scholarship,
I have selected examples in which I believe the analyst invokes
a dance term to refer to the self-standing signifier of a topic,
rather than that dance as a functional piece or genre, though
scholars do not always make these distinctions explicit in their
use of dance names. In my final analyses, I will revisit the
interplay of title and topical content. My aim is to complicate
the referential field of dance topics in twentieth-century reper-
tory while providing direction for how to interpret these
loaded, multifaceted signifiers.
a hierarchy of characteristics
One of the enduring criticisms of topic theory is the relative
paucity with which these signs are described as musical enti-
ties. The infamous words of Supreme Court Justice Potter
Stewart, “I know it when I see it,” are often all too applicable
to the theoretical underpinnings of a topical identification.
Ratner described topics largely by offering a set of musical
examples, leaving it to his audience to infer the connections.
Allanbrook’s 1983 study approaches topics on an expressive
spectrum linked to meters and tempi, thus overlooking many
other parametric features that inform her analyses. Charles
Ford’s critical response to Allanbrook’s work is worth quoting
at length here, for it touches on many of the descriptive short-
comings of topic theory:
The method of attributing rhythmic topoi to various metric
elements could not even be expected to be plausible when
the distinctions between them, whether musical, psycholog-
ical or ideological, are so ill-defined. Allanbrook never
engages with melodic analysis; so all we are offered by way
of determinants of dance types are metres, differences in
up-beat durations, and relative stresses (in which melodic
considerations remain implicit). It seems that anything in
12 For further discussion of the distinction between functional music, a titled
art genre, and expressive content (i.e., topics), see Agawu (1991, 40) and
Lowe (2002).
13 Throughout this study, I rely on the loaded distinction between functional
and art or concert music. My aim is not to reinforce crude binaries of
high/low or pop/art. Rather, I use these terms to differentiate between
venues and modes of consumption. The stylistic demands of a piece of
music intended for dancing, where dancers require music that corresponds
to specific dance steps, is quite different from an evocation or
re-imagination of that dance through a topic in a genre intended for listen-
ing in the context of a concert performance. The usage of these terms should
not be interpreted as a value judgment, but rather to underscore the de-
contextualization of a topic’s signified from its real world or functional use
into a genre consumed by listening, rather than dancing, audiences.
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
common-time can be a bourrée (for example Figaro, No. 1,
p. 75), just as anything in a moderate 34 can be called a min-
uet (for example, Figaro, Act IV scene xiv, p. 179).14
At the heart of Ford’s discomfort is an awareness that topical
identifications extend beyond any singular or handful of musi-
cal parameters. If there are many topics that exhibit triple me-
ter, and not all passages in triple meter present topics, what
unstated parameters has Allanbrook incorporated into her
analysis? And without explicating those parameters, how can
another analyst reproduce the work?
Diligent approaches to topical identifications offer a careful
exploration of the diverse, heterogeneous parameters that form
the signifier. The Classic minuet, for example, has enjoyed
particularly detailed inventory. In Allanbrook’s study, she iden-
tifies several characteristics of the minuet:
1. a time signature of 34 or 38 ;
2. moderate tempo with regular movement;
3. a bass moving in quarter notes;
4. few ornamentations.15
Building on Allanbrook’s work, Melanie Lowe, in her detailed
study of the Classic minuet, offers a more exhaustive descrip-
tion that includes additional features:
5. three beats in a measure “stressed nearly equally, giving the
dance a steady rhythmic profile”;
6. homophonic texture;
7. “simple and normally unembellished melodic style”;
8. a motto rhythm of a quarter followed by four eighth
notes.16
The list has become more particular and yet the analyst would
now be hard pressed to find every feature on this list in every
example of the minuet. In effect, the list now risks becoming
too exclusive.
Although topical identification can begin with careful in-
ventory of the diverse, heterogeneous parameters that form the
signifier, this only constitutes the first step. Next, the analyst
must arrange these characteristics in a weighted hierarchy that
asserts the relative importance of the characteristics to the
overall topical identity. Many analysts seem implicitly to con-
struct such hierarchies. Both Allanbrook and Lowe emphasize
the importance of the motto rhythm of a quarter note followed
by four eighth notes as a distinguishing feature of the Classic
minuet in contrast to earlier Baroque minuets. Lowe argues
that this motive constitutes an exaggeration of certain features
such as a slower tempo and stately affect, in order to empha-
size the abstract idea of noble simplicité in the Classic style.17
Allanbrook describes the motto as: “A deliberate attempt to
signal ‘minuet.’ Its percussive repeated notes in thick chordal
14 Ford (1986, 112).
15 Allanbrook (1983, 33–36).
16 Lowe (2002, 172–74).
17 Ibid., 173–74.
85
texture intensify the dance’s traditional even movement and
restraint, in addition to protecting the dance against the dis-
tortion of a rapid and light execution.”18 The notion of “sig-
naling” a minuet is significant here, for the minuet as a topic is
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an abstraction from its historical precedent as a functional
dance piece. By selecting only certain features of the actual
minuet in order to signify “minuet” in a piano sonata, aria, or
symphonic movement, the topic takes on expressive signifi-
cance through these exaggerated and broadened characteristics.
The weighted hierarchy shown in Example 1 illustrates
more completely the minuet topic’s various characteristics of
weighted importance. Essential features (those that occur in all
tokens of the type) appear at the top of the hierarchy. These
characteristics must all be present to identify a token of the
topic. They are broad enough to encapsulate many manifesta-
tions of the topic, yet remain sufficiently narrow so as to dis-
tinguish from other dances and topics. In the case of the
minuet, its moderate tempo and three equal beats distinguish
it from the slower sarabande or faster waltz, both of which
have weightier second or first beats, respectively. Frequent
characteristics lie in the middle of the hierarchy. These charac-
teristics are not essential to a topical identification; nor can
they form a token of the type on their own, but when present
they contribute to the topic’s markedness and help nuance its
expressive content. Characteristics in the minuet topic such as
sparse ornamentation and de-emphasis on the second down-
beat help to link the music gesturally and affectively to the re-
strained, noble dance. Stylistically particular or idiosyncratic
treatments of the topic lie at the bottom of the hierarchy.
These are characteristics that appear in works of a particular
style, composer, or compositional circle. These features are
marked within the broader referential sphere of the topic, for
they do not appear in all manifestations of the topic. They
may become conventional within a particular set of works or
compositional oeuvre and may even form new topics as a subset
of features becomes unmarked and significantly pervasive,
passing to the level of essential characteristics within a new hi-
erarchy (this will be discussed in greater detail below). This
distinction is evident between the lively minuet of the French
court and the slower Classic minuet, whose tempo, simplified
texture, and motto rhythm affectively mark the Classic minuet
with noble simplicité idealized in the late eighteenth century.
This graphical representation lays bare the terms of recog-
nition while also providing sufficiently broad criteria to incor-
porate topics within a wide range of repertories when
applicable. Indeed, the constituent features of the model are
akin to what Stephen Rumph has described as figurae.
Borrowing from Louis Hjelmslev’s semiotics, Rumph explains
that figurae are “nonsignifying features within the expression
plane from which lexical items take shape,” such as the pho-
nemes that construct the words of the English language. The
figurae, or characteristic meters, rhythms, motives, and ges-
tures, of topics differ however from phonemes in language.
18 Allanbrook (1983, 34).
 86 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)
example 1. Weighted hierarchy of characteristics of the minuet topic
Whereas a single letter does not directly shape the meaning of
the word, the constituent musical features of topics contribute
to a more immediate “kinesthetic-emotional experience” that
then colors the broader social and cultural semantic field of the
topic’s signification.19 In the example of the minuet, we saw
how particular figurae, such as the motto rhythm, can color the
affective markedness of the topic. By arraying these character-
istics into a hierarchy, I go beyond Rumph’s application of fig-
urae to articulate clearly which characteristics are essential to a
topical identification and which characteristics embellish and
invite more nuanced interpretation.
A hierarchical schematic also frees the analyst from relying
on the quotation or imitation of specific exemplars, a major
achievement of Robert Hatten’s incorporation of type-token
typology from linguistics into his approach to style. Types,
according to Hatten, occupy “an ideal or conceptual category
defined by features or a range of qualities that are essential to
its identity,” while tokens consist of “the perceptible entity that
embodies or manifests the features or qualities of the type.”20
The musical topic therefore encompasses two ontologically
distinct categories: types, which are cognitive, and tokens,
which are perceptual. It is easy to point to tokens for they exist
in actual musical scores, but the type remains an abstract or
immaterial category to be conceptualized. While all tokens re-
fer to the type, the type itself does not rely on a specific exem-
plar or archetype. The topical hierarchy thus illustrates the
intangible type. By emphasizing the “lowest common
19 Rumph (2011, 95–97). See also Rumph (2014).
20 Hatten (1994, 45).
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denominator,” or minimum characteristics needed to articulate
a token without becoming too general, this approach can illus-
trate the cognitive fluidity with which listeners identify some
topics in a wide range of styles.
This hierarchical approach is essential to understanding
how certain topics enjoy longevity and adaptability in a variety
of styles, including post-tonal repertory. To this end, consider
how twentieth-century manifestations of the minuet topic fit
into this diagram. Stravinsky’s Minuetto from the Pulcinella
Suite, shown in Example 2, exhibits a rather uncomplicated to-
ken of the minuet. The three equal beats in 38 meter are em-
phasized by repeated pitches on beats 1 and 2 in the first and
second measures of Reh. 94. The melody, first in the French
horn and then the strings and bassoon, also features a largely
diatonic, unornamented line over a homophonic accompani-
ment fully realized by Reh. 95. At the level of stylistically par-
ticular characteristics, the bass line and accompaniment
simplify into nearly continuous eighth notes from Reh. 95 on-
ward. The motto rhythm also appears repeatedly two measures
after Reh. 94 and two, three, and six measures after Reh. 95.
Stravinsky has composed in this passage an easily identifiable
and rather well-behaved minuet token.
A compositional exercise for string quartet by Alban Berg
shown in Example 3 provides a more complex minuet token
that nonetheless exhibits similar features from the hierarchy.
The rhythmic simplicity of quarter and eighth notes empha-
sizes the evenness of the beats within the triple meter. The
minuet is more active with eighth notes sounding nearly con-
tinuously throughout the texture, but the motto rhythm still
appears in m. 5 in the viola and m. 7 in the second violin.
 the musical topic in the twentieth century 87

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example 2. Stravinsky, Suite de Pulcinella, VIII. Minuetto, Reh. 94–96. V
C Copyright 1925 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd.

C Copyright 1966 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. Reprinted by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
Revised version V

The chromaticism and contour of the melodic lines are more
elaborate than in Stravinsky, yet the essential features remain.
Example 4 illustrates the flexibility implicit in the hierarchy to
facilitate token identification. Although the second movement
from Schoenberg’s Serenade, Op. 24, titled “Menuett” features
a rhythmically complex counterpoint between the clarinet and
the bass clarinet, the continuous quarter and eighth notes in
the guitar help to establish a clear metrical identity. The man-
dolin further articulates this simple accompaniment at the be-
ginning with eighth notes. Schoenberg’s minuet is the weakest
token of the three twentieth-century minuets shown here, and
the issue of “degrees” of identification will be addressed below.
But these analyses demonstrate that, by moving beyond the
initial inventory of topical features and understanding their
weighted importance, the analyst can provide a detailed and
specific explanation of the topical identity while still account-
ing for the stylistic adaptability and amenability of many
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century topics to twentieth-
century repertory.
In these latter examples, although a minuet topic is con-
firmed by the presence of the essential features, it is the stylis-
tically particular characteristics that nuance the tokens and aid
in a more specific interpretation. The emphasis on continuous
eighth notes, denser homophony, and lack of the motto
rhythm in Berg and Schoenberg evoke a Baroque rather than
Classic minuet. Stravinsky on the other hand, through homo-
rhythmic texture, even and deliberate placement of the eighth-
note pulse, and presence of the motto rhythm, presents a token
appearance infused with elements of the Classic minuet.
Although each of these composers employs the minuet as a
strategic element of the neoclassical style, their respective
frames of reference for that topic are quite different. Berg and
Schoenberg look to an earlier stylistic manifestation of the
dance, whereas Stravinsky employs the exaggerated “noble”
88 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)
example 3. Berg, composition study, Menuet for String Quartet in D Minor
features of the Classic minuet. At the broadest level, all the
examples share the same general features of the minuet type;
lower level characteristics, however, help shape and nuance
meaning through a narrower range of features. It is with this
nuance of interpretation in mind that I now turn in the waltzes
of Schoenberg.
the waltz topic
The waltz is a formidable topic. Its referential objects, the so-
cial dance and the salon piano genre, enjoy lengthy histories,
while use of the waltz topic itself is nearly continuous in music
from the early nineteenth century up through the present day.
Such a rich expressive field makes the waltz topic an enticing
linchpin for interpretive readings. Yet this frequency of appear-
ance also leaves the waltz topic susceptible to uncritical identi-
fication in twentieth-century repertory. A complete
investigation of the origins of the waltz in the late eighteenth
century is beyond the scope of this article. Several recent stud-
ies by Derek Scott (2008) and Erik McKee (2012), however,
provide excellent backgrounds for the musical and social milieu
in which this dance became a popular pastime and subse-
quently permeated concert halls and salons in the nineteenth
century. Their studies heavily inform the present hierarchical
evaluation of waltz topic characteristics.
Scott and McKee both agree that, prior to 1815, it is diffi-
cult to identify a particular form, genre, or style synonymous
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with the waltz designation. Dances named Deutscher Tanz,
L€andler, and waltz all coexisted as faster, easier alternatives to
the noble minuet and served to satisfy the growing interest of
the middle and lower classes flocking to public dance halls in
Vienna and beyond.21 These dances distinguished themselves
musically from the minuet first and foremost through an em-
phasis on the dotted half-note pulse rather than the equal
quarter-note pulse of the minuet. To achieve this effect, mid-
dle-class dances employed faster tempi and abandoned the
chordal or homophonic texture commonly found in the minuet
in preference for a melody-plus-accompaniment texture. These
characteristics set middle-class dances apart from the minuet,
yet still there was little differentiation between Deutsche T€anze,
L€andler, and waltzes.22 The term “waltz” during this period
seems to hold more meaning as a choreographic description
rather than a generic designation. Johann Heinrich Kattfuss
writing in 1800 explains, “Waltzes, Drehen, L€andern have no
21 For an overview of the socioeconomic contexts of the rise of public dance
halls in Vienna, see Korhonen (2013).
22 Allanbrook groups a number of triple-time dances in the late eighteenth
century under the broad category of an “allemande in triple meter (34 , 38 )”
and adds that “l€andler and waltz are modern generic terms for these quick
triple dances, more commonly in use today than they were in the eigh-
teenth century. The 34 allemandes are, however, the immediate ancestors
of the waltz, and the dances most distant from the French court tradition”
(Allanbrook [1983, 59]).
 the musical topic in the twentieth century 89

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example 4. Schoenberg, Serenade, Op. 24, “ Menuett,” mm. 1–8. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.

differences in the steps except that the waltz moves quickly
while the L€andern is danced slowly.”23
By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, however,
the waltz emerged as a distinct dance genre choreographically
and musically. McKee and Scott offer a wide range of charac-
teristics found in the waltzes of Lanner and Strauss, Sr., that
helped solidify the composers’ popularity and codify the
musical features of the functional waltz. The most important
characteristic that distinguished the waltz from other fast,
23 “Walzen, Drehen, L€andern hat in dem Pas keinen Unterschied, außer
daß das Walzen geschwind, das L€andern aber langsam getanzet wird”
(Quoted in Lange 1984, 54). Translation by the author.
triple-time dances was the near continuous use of the “oom-
pah-pah” accompaniment. In this distinct texture, the bass
note on the downbeat falls in a lower register than the subse-
quent, usually chordal, quarter notes on beats 2 and 3 in the
accompaniment. It is important to note that the oom-pah-pah
accompaniment, prior to 1815, is not synonymous with any
particular triple-time dance. Scott argues that “the ‘um-pah-pah’
accompaniment [in the waltz] is rare, or scantily applied, be-
fore Lanner and Strauss.”24 McKee observes the gesture fre-
quently in the late eighteenth century but cautions against
associating it exclusively with middle-class dances, for “Mozart
24 Scott (2008, 119).
 90 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)

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example 5. Mozart, Zwölf deutsche T€anze, K. 536, No. 1, mm. 1–16

used the oom-pah-pah as a standard accompaniment pattern
in his [minuet] trios long before he began composing Deutsche
and L€andler.”25
Indeed, closer examination of “Deutsche T€anze” collections
of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven reveals frequent use of the
oom-pah-pah pattern as just one of many textural options
available in these dance collections. In the first dance of
Mozart’s Zwölf deutsche T€anze, K. 536, provided in
Example 5, the oom-pah-pah arises only briefly in mm. 9–11,
sandwiched between many other stock patterns found in
triple-time dances. A survey of the waltzes of Lanner and
25 McKee (2012, 71).
Strauss, Sr., however, reveals that the accompanimental figure
is nearly continuous in their waltzes (exceptions can be found
in transitional sections and the introduction or coda where the
music accompanies dancers entering or exiting the dance
floor). Even in famous waltzes of the later Strauss, Jr., where
competing gestures in the accompaniment served to break up
the monotony of the oom-pah-pah accompaniment, the fun-
damental pattern is still identifiable. In the second waltz of
Rosen aus dem Süden, shown in Example 6, although the cellos
vary the texture with an upwards arpeggiated pizzicato line,
this does not supplant the oom-pah-pah that continues in the
brass, second violins, violas, and basses. By the 1820s then, the
oom-pah-pah figure provided the key distinction of the waltz
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
example 6. Strauss, Jr., Rosen aus dem Süden, No. 3, mm. 195–98
from other similar triple-time middle- and lower-class dances.
McKee summarizes that “only with the explosion in popularity
of the waltz in the opening decades of the nineteenth century
did the oom-pah-pah become indelibly linked to a single
genre.”26
It should not be surprising, then, that the musical features
that helped distinguish middle-class dances in triple time from
the minuet in the late eighteenth century and the waltz from
other popular ballroom dances in the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century subsequently became the broad, generic charac-
teristics upon which composers relied to signify the dance in
its topical manifestations in instrumental music. Example 7 il-
lustrates this hierarchy of characteristics where moderate tri-
ple-time tempo, melody-plus-accompaniment texture, and
oom-pah-pah accompaniment contribute the generic, essential
features of the waltz topic.27 These features are broad enough
to encompass many tokens in a range of styles, yet narrow
26 Ibid., 72.
27 Although many commentators describe the waltz tempo as a moderate
pace and/or distinguish between fast and slow waltzes, scholars rarely as-
cribe exact tempo markings. Scott offers the astute observation that waltz
tempi fluctuated “to suit the fashions of women’s dresses. It slowed down
for narrower styles of the early nineteenth century, but when fuller skirts
began to develop in the 1820s it speeded up again” (2008, 118). In the in-
terest of greater specificity, and lacking any sources that define exact met-
ronome markings for the waltz, I shall rely on the existing ethnographic
evidence to define this moderate tempo between 28–30 or 58–60 mea-
sures per minute. These are the tempo markings delineated for the (slow)
waltz and the Viennese waltz, respectively, by various international gov-
erning bodies of ballroom dance. These tempi are intended to define bet-
ter the waltz topic’s “moderate tempo” and should not be adopted too
rigidly. The frame enables the analyst to recognize the tempi that would
be too slow or too fast to execute the dance steps. For tempi indications
by ballroom dance governing bodies, see the Competition Rules listed on
the websites of the World DanceSport Federation, last modified June 15,
2016, http://www.worlddancesport.org/Rule/Competition/General and
the World Dance Council, last modified June 2016, http://www.
wdcdance.com/index.php/competitive-dance/wdc-competition-rules.
91
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enough so as to distinguish the waltz from other similar triple-
time dance topics. The salon waltzes of Schubert, Chopin, and
others no doubt played a key role in this adaptation of the
functional waltz into an art music setting. Chopin’s Waltz in
F Minor, Op. 70, No. 2, provided in Example 8, stands as one
of many examples in which these characteristics emerge in the
salon genre to fulfill the expected waltz content and signify
“waltz” in a purely listening context. The passage exhibits clear
melody-plus-accompaniment texture in which the left hand
performs the characteristic oom-pah-pah pattern. Rhythmic
motives such as the dotted-quarter, eighth, quarter in the right
hand in mm. 2, 4, and 10 yield frequent characteristics of the
waltz topic and serve to strengthen the topical identification.
The reader will also notice that minor variations of the oom-
pah-pah pattern occur in mm. 3, 6, and 8. These variations do
not undermine the waltz topic, but rather liven the texture and
please the listener (in a functional context, on the other hand,
a monotonous texture is more practical to aid the dancer). The
hierarchy is therefore not meant to be applied literally, measure
by measure, for this would be more akin to imitation or quota-
tion of an exemplar. Rather, the hierarchy illustrates the broad,
generic characteristics that aid in the identification of the waltz
token.
The examples thus far have drawn on works designated as
waltzes by their titles. Although a titled genre is often the lo-
cale to define and refine the topic, as Lowe has shown, topical
content can also evade or even contradict the title’s expected
content.28 It is therefore important to look beyond the salon
genre to other manifestations of the waltz in instrumental mu-
sic. In Example 9 from the second movement of Symphonie
fantastique, Berlioz uses the same collection of essential charac-
teristics to present a waltz topic at Reh. 22. The topic here, of
course, signifies a functional waltz in Berlioz’s programmatic
portrayal of a ball. And yet the structure of the movement with
28 Lowe (2002).
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example 7. Weighted hierarchy of characteristics of the waltz topic

example 8. Chopin, Waltz in F Minor, Op. 70, No. 2, mm. 1–8

its fits and starts would hardly be practical in a functional con-
text. Again, the waltz is signified through generic features
without actually presenting a functional waltz. Other examples,
with more tenuous textual connections to the waltz, continue
to rely on these essential features. Although the waltz is not
overtly signified by title or program in Example 10 or Example 11,
the topic nonetheless emerges clearly in these passages from
the third movement of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony and the
second movement of Stravinsky’s Octet. These latter two to-
kens are all the more indicative of a reliance on broadly generic
features as the harmonic and generic idioms of Mahler and
Stravinsky are so different from a Chopin waltz or even a pro-
grammatic symphony. These last two examples illustrate how
the hierarchy of characteristics can help articulate both the
flexibility as well as the adaptability of the waltz topic.
Several other waltz features deserve attention before delving
into a discussion of Schoenberg’s waltz tokens. It should also
be noted that McKee and Scott offer many other characteristic
features of functional waltzes in the 1820s, including symmet-
rical hypermetric structure and phrase rhythm, which were in-
corporated into the waltz genre for solo piano. But these
features are not essential to the waltz type. As the following
discussion Schoenberg will reveal, manifestations of the waltz
topic may be fleeting, too brief to require hypermetric con-
structions as part of its essential features. The reader will also
notice that characteristics of the “Viennese waltz”—the delay
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example 9. Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique, II. Un Bal, mm. 36–46

example 10. Mahler, Symphony No. 7, III. Satz: Scherzo, mm. 218–25

and/or anticipation of the second beat, certain motives such as
the quarter, dotted-quarter, eighth-note pattern, and disjunct
melodic leaps between beats 1 and 2—are relegated to the
third level of stylistically particular features in Example 7.
These characteristics can be pervasive, but if the hierarchy
serves to identify the minimum characteristics necessary to
identify a waltz topic, none of the excerpts above from
Chopin, Berlioz, Mahler, and Stravinsky would qualify as
waltz tokens if these Viennese characteristics were admitted at
an essential level. Thus, not all waltzes are specifically
Viennese waltzes. However, a token that exhibits these addi-
tional Viennese features may be considered a narrower or
“marked” signifier with regard to time, place, and cultural
history.
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example 11. Stravinsky, Octet for Wind Instruments, II. Theme and Variations, fourth measure of Reh. 33. V
C Copyright 1924 by

Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. Revised version V

C Copyright 1952 by Hawkes & Son (London) Ltd. U.S. Copyright Renewed. Reprinted

by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

Further complexity arises when a work or body of works
consistently exhibits these lower-level features of the Viennese
waltz. As these marked features become more commonplace,
the Viennese waltz topic may itself become unmarked, in ef-
fect forming a new type (with its own conditions for marked-
ness) from a subset of the broader waltz type. In a largely
exploratory final chapter in his book on markedness in
Beethoven, Hatten provides the model in Example 12 to illus-
trate this growth of new types from subsets of an older type.29
Adapting his model to my characteristic hierarchy shown in
Example 13, new types are formed, as stylistically particular or id-
iomatic features within the type, such as Viennese waltz charac-
teristics, are elevated and placed on equal footing with other
essential features. This reorganized hierarchy of characteristics
creates a new type with more narrowly defined criteria, yet whose
tokens may now yield their own marked oppositions, creating
more nuanced meanings. In Hatten’s diagram, the temporality of
such stylistic growth unfolds as one reads the diagram from top
to bottom. In my figure, the same process is understood as char-
acteristics are elevated from bottom to top. Like Hatten, who
largely leaves these models in the realm of the theoretical, I will
not trace the chronological unfolding of stylistic growth by subset
here. Yet this brief foray illustrates the potential for dynamic
growth and adaptation within these hierarchies.
In a similar vein, marked nuances of the waltz that develop
in the salon genre may also form a new subtype as their use be-
comes more pervasive. In this instance, there is also the possi-
bility for a semantic shift as corollary meaning shifts from the
functional dance to the rich pianistic traditions and salon cul-
ture of the nineteenth century. A perusal of Chopin’s waltzes
reveals that, although characteristics from the functional waltz
feature prominently, there are passages that deviate from the
standard oom-pah-pah accompaniment. McKee describes how
Chopin integrated the kinesthetic effect of the waltz choreog-
raphy into his salon waltzes by adopting “the basic shape of
the dance motive—an arch, typically ascending” and integrat-
ing it “in varied forms, in different parts of the texture, and at
different temporal levels.”30 In Example 14 and Example 15,
frequent variations in the oom-pah-pah accompaniment are
apparent in the arch gestures created within the measure by an

29 Hatten (1994, 263–64). 30 McKee (2012, 151, 153).

 the musical topic in the twentieth century
example 12. Adapted from Hatten (1994, 264), Figure 10.5.
Derivation of a type from further articulation of an existing type.
Used by permission of Indiana University Press.
arpeggiation or a step downward between the first and second
“pahs.” In the hierarchy I have proposed, these elaborations in
the accompaniment point to a more specific, idiomatic style of
Chopin, which can then come to signify the rich instrumental
tradition associated with concert adaptations of the waltz. In
the passage from Saint-Sa€ens’s Danse macabre shown in
Example 16, the composer seems to reference both the func-
tional waltz in the work’s title, albeit distorted into a dance of
death, while simultaneously pointing to the waltz topic refined
in the salon with its arching arpeggiated accompaniment.
Clearly, the distinctions between topic, functional music,
and art genre are incredibly complex for a topic as sophisti-
cated as the waltz. Given the dependence of the topic on both
functional and salon waltzes for its identity, the method here
may be vulnerable to accusations of circular reasoning. If topics
are signs that do not rely on textual or programmatic cues,
how is the initial corpus of examples that helps construct the
hierarchy of characteristics determined in the first place? This
criticism is perhaps endemic to Hatten’s model of stylistic cor-
relation and strategic interpretation, on which I heavily rely.
Where Hatten has embraced what he considers a fruitful
“methodological dialectic,” others have found fault.31 Agawu,
for example, argues that “Since our pre-theoretical state is thus
31 Hatten (1994, 29).
95
already contaminated with intuitive and hence ‘theoretical’ no-
tions of norm and deviation, the hermeneutic effort becomes
unavoidably circular.”32 In the present study, the initial selec-
tion of topical examples is already informed by an “intuited”
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hierarchy of characteristics. Elucidating that hierarchy there-
fore only serves to reinforce our intuitions rather than revealing
new analytic insights.
I would argue, however, that an awareness of topics as a
more generalized expression of a real-world or functional refer-
ent that is signified in a new (art music) context breaks this
circularity. The hierarchy of characteristics illustrates how a
sonic signified is simplified and certain features generalized to
create a conventional musical signifier of that object in a new,
art music context. In this sense, topical hierarchies are similar
to what Janet Levy describes as conventional textures.
According to Levy, Alberti bass, solo lines, and unison scoring
all create stock textures that correlate to certain formal expecta-
tions and expressive strategies. These effects do not rely on
contextual relationships within the piece, but draw on global-
ized expectations of such conventional textures.33
Furthermore, these textures are broad enough in their charac-
teristics so as to be recognized in a variety of examples without
relying on quotation or imitation. In a similar vein, a topic
such as the waltz evokes its functional counterpart in an art
music context through a conventional means of simplifying
and reproducing certain traits or “essential features” of that
rich musical referent. That is to say, topics evoke the waltz in a
conventional way. Monelle similarly observes that, “the topic is
essentially a symbol, its iconic or indexical features governed
by convention and thus by rule. However, topics may be
glimpsed through a feature that seems universal to them: a fo-
cus on the indexicality of content, rather than the content itself.”
Monelle here refers to topics that “do not signify by virtue of
resemblance, but because they reproduce styles and repertories
from elsewhere.”34 Again, topics involve a de-contextualization
whereby certain features—but not an exact replica—help point
to the musical object signified. Thus, the topical type, which
governs token manifestations of the topic, is itself informed by
conventional adaptations of the external functional referent in
an art music context.
incomplete and complete waltz topics in schoenberg
Waltzes play a prominent role in several recent approaches to
interpreting Schoenberg’s works. Focusing on Schoenberg’s
marital crisis of 1904–1908, Alexander Carpenter concludes
that references to waltzes in repertory from this period act as
“meaningful personal signifiers that are connected to intimate
and intense feelings: they are abundant in his music, and serve
a number of different functions . . . They have a particular sig-
nificance . . . as gestures that mark moments of crisis and
32 Agawu (1996, 154).
33 Levy (1982).
34 Monelle (2000, 17).
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example 13. Formation of a new type from a subset of an existing type: Stylistic or idiomatic features are elevated to essential features

example 14. Chopin, Waltz in E Minor, mm. 9–17

example 15. Chopin, Valse Brillante, Op. 34, No.1, mm. 33–40
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
example 16. Saint-Sa€ens, Danse macabre, mm. 33–41
change, and that also often bridge these moments, metaphori-
cally connecting past and present.”35 In this section, I will use
the waltz topic’s hierarchy to evaluate the salience of the topic
identified by Carpenter and others in Schoenberg’s First and
Second String Quartets. In giving greater voice to the very dif-
ferent manners in which the waltz is invoked in both of these
works, I will then illustrate how the waltz’s significance must
be tempered when incorporating its appearance into an
interpretation.
Carpenter begins his essay with a discussion of the First
String Quartet, Op. 7, where he hears a “prominent” waltz
that he maps onto Schoenberg’s programmatic indication of a
“transition to struggle.”36 Carpenter, however, never clearly in-
dicates where he hears this waltz topic. Only a footnote directs
the reader to Mark Benson’s formal analysis of the movement
where Schoenberg’s programmatic phrase correlates to
Reh. B.37 The absence of clear signposts for identifying this
waltz in Carpenter’s prose would suggest that its appearance is
impossible to miss. But the passage at Reh. B reproduced in
Example 17 hardly seems to present an unequivocal token of
the waltz. The section does shift to 34 with the tempo (Sehr
rasch, dotted-half note ¼ half note) indicating emphasis on the
downbeat, and melodic interjections in the first violin and cello
are reminiscent of a waltz motive. But the texture clearly di-
vides into two equal parts: the waltz-like melody in the first vi-
olin and cello (written an octave apart) and the largely
conjunct tremolo line in the inner voices (also an octave apart).
Although tempo and motivic content are vaguely suggestive of
the waltz, a melody and subordinate harmonic support, much
less an accompaniment featuring the essential oom-pah-pah
pattern, are wholly absent.
Yet Michael Cherlin also identifies a waltz at Reh. B, albeit
somewhat tangentially. In a table illustrating the formal func-
tions and salient features of the movement, Cherlin distills the
major components of the work’s sonata form. Under “salient
features,” Cherlin identifies important cadential points and key
35 Carpenter (2009, 25–26).
36 Ibid., 25n1.
37 Benson (1993, 377). For Schoenberg’s program to the work, see Auner
(2003, 48–49).
97
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areas. Only at Reh. B does he deviate from harmonic criteria
to list a “waltz in e.”38 The topical reference to a waltz is strik-
ing, for nowhere else in the diagram does he consider topics a
salient feature. Yet Cherlin goes so far as to state that
“Schoenberg gives us eighty-six measures of an unmistakable
waltz” without any elaboration of how the waltz manifests in
this passage.39 As in Carpenter’s analysis, the certainty of his
language would suggest that the topic is presented clearly and
without complication.
Compare this weak association in Op. 7 with another waltz
that Carpenter identifies in the passage in Example 18 from
the second movement of Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet,
Op. 10. The repeated staccato notes on beats 2 and 3 in mm.
166–68 in the second violin serve as the “pah” to the cello’s
downbeat articulations, whereupon the violas take up the ges-
ture in mm. 169–70. This figuration is somewhat odd, for it
calls on the prominent melody passed between the second vio-
lin and viola to act as accompaniment to its own tune. But
above this the first violin’s lilting disjunct melody nuances the
topical appearance with disjunct melodic leaps characteristic of
Viennese-style waltzes. To encompass the waltz features of
Op. 7 and Op. 10 under the same interpretive reading, as
Carpenter does, thus oversimplifies the strikingly different
strengths of topical reference in these passages. Op. 10 is far
less ambiguous than Op. 7 due to the presence of the essential
features of the waltz type, thus inviting narrower and more
specified meaning when interpreting the passage. This is not
to say that only Op. 10 engages with the waltz while Op. 7
does not. Rather, it is important to consider how the reference
to the waltz type—whether weak or strong—can and should
shape one’s interpretive conclusions.
Hatten’s theoretical distinction between stylistic correlation
versus strategic interpretation is particularly insightful at this
juncture. The terms refer, respectively, to the “general princi-
ples and constraints of a style, and the individual choices and
exceptions occasioned by a work.”40 The example from Op. 7
merely alludes to the waltz type by loose reference to the
38 Cherlin (2007, 167).
39 Ibid., 169.
40 Hatten (1994, 29–30).
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example 17. Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 1 in D, mm. 200–207. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.

nonessential motivic characteristic of the topic, while other
textural features fail to support a waltz reading. The passage is
suggestive of the dance (and therefore might invite a correla-
tion), yet to interpret the passage as a token of the waltz type
would be incorrect. Op. 10, on the other hand, by virtue of
presenting all of the essential features of the waltz (triple time,
moderate tempo, melody-plus-accompaniment texture, and an
oom-pah-pah pattern), not only offers a clear token, but in-
vites further strategic interpretation as that token may be
marked by further characteristics.
The nuance that Hatten provides between mere “recognition”
of a type versus a novelty that invites strategic interpretation is
key for how the waltz references in both examples should be
read. In Op. 7, meaning is accessible at a general level by suggest-
ing a waltz without actually presenting the topic. Its meaning is
potent through this absence of the complete signifier. A more ap-
propriate reading of the passage in Op. 7 might explore the elu-
sive effect of this absence as a glimpse or memory of the dance.
In his seminal study of Vienna, Carl Schorske facilitates a similar
reading (though without the analytic apparatus) in Ravel’s La
Valse where he hears “fragments of waltz themes scattered over a
brooding stillness.”41 The association of memory, reminiscence,
and disruption are hard-pressed to engage with more concrete
42 For more on this semiotic weight of the descending half step, see Monelle
41 Schorske (1981, 3).
ideas, such as Schoenberg’s autobiographical narrative, because
meaning is invoked here through more general correlation—
without an actual waltz token, the meaning of the waltz cannot
be further nuanced through strategic interpretation. But as a
failed token, more potent signifiers may emerge against which
this absence can become meaningful.
In Example 19, the passage that begins in the fourteenth
measure of Reh. B illustrates how such tangential references to
the waltz can interact with dominant, foregrounded signifiers.
At this moment, the tempo changes to Viel langsamer with
three equally stressed quarter notes in the measure. The texture
also shifts to a melody in the first violin and accompaniment
in the lower strings. Again, the waltz is vaguely suggested by
motives in the first violin and the brief emphasis on beat 1 in
m. 16 and m. 17 created by harmonic motion and articulation
in the lower voices. But overall, the passage’s equal emphasis
on the quarter note and lack of oom-pah-pah accompaniment
impresses only a hazy reference to the waltz. Instead, a more
potent signifier arises in the slurred half-step motion in the
different parts, evocative of the motive variously named the
Seufzer, pianto, or sigh.42 The melody-plus-accompaniment
texture, though important for the waltz type, at this slower
(2000, 66–73) and Hatten (2004, 140–42).
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example 18. Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 2, II. Sehr rasch, mm. 165–88. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers,
Los Angeles.

tempo and in absence of a dotted-half note pulse amenable to
dance instead suggests the singing style. Other features en-
hance the vocal quality of the passage: rests on the downbeats
in mm. 14 and 16 create a start-and-stop quality of speech,
the melody’s largely conjunct motion and narrow range are
easy to sing, and the cello response at m. 18 that continues the
violin’s plaint gives rise to a vocal duet. The tangential waltz
features of this passage, nearly lost in the overall singing style,
create the very tension that Agawu identifies in Romantic mu-
sic as a “mixture of modes.”43 It is, therefore, not surprising
that Op. 7, where hints of the waltz topic are infused into a
predominantly singing mode, features so prominently in vari-
ous scholars’ reading. Yet this meaning is lost if the analyst
merely labels the passage a waltz without problematizing that
manifestation of the topic.
Cherlin’s interpretation of the movement is indeed
strengthened by this tenuous association with the waltz. He
hears the reference to the waltz within a broader formal narra-
tive of “agrarian” (or fixed) and “nomadic” readings of the
work’s form. The quartet presents a complex structure that

43 Identifying three distinct modes of enunciation (song, speech, and dance) contradiction, the passage is ripe for analytic and interpretive insights
in Romantic music, Agawu argues that when these modes enter into (2009, 98–102).
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example 19. Schoenberg, String Quartet No 1 in D, mm. 213–32. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.

may, from various temporal perspectives within the work, be
interpreted either as a single sonata-form movement or as four
distinct movements of a Classical string quartet. Transitional
moments between formal signposts serve to blur the distinc-
tion between these two formal readings. At Reh. B, the work
at once moves to the sonata’s development at the same time
that it foreshadows a Scherzo movement. The waltz reference
here for Cherlin facilitates the evocation of a faster, triple-time
dance movement characteristic of a string quartet. But Cherlin
argues that the interruption of the principal theme at Reh. C
thwarts this hearing, wrenching the work back into a sonata
form rather than a multimovement work.44 The incomplete
evocation of the waltz, however, better articulates the effect
that Cherlin describes. The vague deployment of several waltz
features correlates to and suggests a dance movement. And yet
the failure to present an actual token of the waltz prevents the
passage from fully realizing a Scherzo. To add to Cherlin’s
reading, one might also argue that the preponderance of sing-
ing style fourteen measures after Reh. B is indicative of a slow
44 Cherlin (2007, 165–69).
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
Adagio movement, thus adding further complexity to the
shifting perspectives of the work’s form.
Compare the expressive potential of this vague and tangen-
tial reference to the waltz in Op. 7 with the narrower interpre-
tation of a waltz token offered in Op. 10. As mentioned
above, the oom-pah-pah accompaniment gesture is partially
fulfilled by the lower notes on beats 2 and 3 of the melodic
voice (quoting the well-known folk tune “Ach du lieber
Augustin”) in mm. 166–70. Unlike in Op. 7, where dance ele-
ments were subordinated within a predominantly singing style,
here the folk tune and waltz topic achieve a unique symbiosis
as repeated notes in the melody simultaneously act as the
“pah-pah” of the waltz. The passage also suggests a learned
style where the second violin and viola’s respective four-
measure phrases are overlapped in m. 168 and again in m.
171; the similar phrase beginnings sound like imitative or fugal
entrances rather than antecedent-consequent pairings. The
passage is therefore saturated with seemingly conflicting signi-
fiers: popular and art music, high and low, functional and con-
cert idioms. And yet Schoenberg does not force these signs
together in an uneasy juxtaposition or layering as in, for exam-
ple, Stravinsky’s crowd scenes from Petrushka. Folk song and
imitation here serve to strengthen and nuance the established
waltz topic rather than undermine it.
Schoenberg offers yet another embellishment of the waltz to-
ken here that deserves attention. Although he establishes the
oom-pah-pah pattern in the first few measures between the
cello line and middle voices, by m. 171 the cello increasingly fix-
ates on the descending motive from the folk tune. This gesture
in the cello resembles an inversion of the oom-pah-pah figure to
a high-low-low pattern. In isolation, the figure may not seem
remarkable or linked to the waltz topic. But a broader survey of
Schoenberg’s waltz topics reveals this gesture to be a frequent,
idiomatic variation. (The figure appears also in the “Serenade”
and “Valse de Chopin” from Pierrot lunaire and the Waltz of
Op. 23.)45 In effect, Schoenberg approaches the waltz topic
with a sense of novelty, adding a variation to one of its essential
features. The effect is a sustained waltz token that at once con-
forms to the conventions of the type by presenting all essential
characteristics while at the same time challenging and broaden-
ing the range of those expressive features.
Schoenberg’s treatment of the waltz topic here may be char-
acterized as a unique fusion of seemingly contrasting musical
signifiers. Yet by m. 176, the topic begins to idle obsessively on
Schoenberg’s new oom-pah-pah variation, gradually eliminating
all other elements from the texture until the passage hangs in
uncertainty. Many commentators have observed how the
45 Mahler also uses a similar variation extensively in the second movement of
the Ninth Symphony. It is difficult to say whether one composer was
influenced by the other or if this is an idiosyncratic treatment of the waltz
characteristic of a particular group of composers. What is noteworthy is
that, for Schoenberg, the figure is pervasive and suggests an innovation,
and subsequent normalization, of that feature within the composer’s
idiom.
101
fixation at this moment underscores the corresponding nihilist
text in the folk melody “Alles ist hin,” a message variously
linked to Schoenberg’s marital crisis or his departure from a
late-Romantic compositional idiom.46 But one might also hear
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a promise of rejuvenation as a well-worn musical topic is pre-
sented in a new, idiomatic expansion of the hierarchy and a
creative integration of seemingly conflicting musical signifiers.
Schoenberg himself recognized this work as the harbinger of his
second compositional period. This new idiom is chiefly charac-
terized by a move away from tonality, but topics seem also to
play an important role as both a connective tissue with previous
stylistic trends as well as a site for continued innovation. The
passage in Op. 10 dwindles with uncertainty over the direction
this new expressive content will take, but subsequent manifesta-
tions of the waltz, as well as Schoenberg’s idiomatic treatment
of the topic, suggest a successful stylistic growth and adaptation
of the type to an emerging compositional style.
historical continuity and irony
The discussion above has hinted at the complex cultural his-
tory of the waltz, whose signification may point to middle-
class social dance or salon and orchestral music of the
nineteenth century. Walter Frisch looks to these and other
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century references in Schoenberg
as manifestations of historicizing irony as the composer “em-
bed[s] older forms and techniques (melodrama, barcarole,
waltz, passacaglia, canon, ostinato, walking bass, tonal-
sounding thirds and triads) in a sonic world of new tone col-
ors, harmonies, and vocal practices.”47 It is unclear here
whether Frisch references the waltz as a topic, functional piece,
or art music genre in this passage, though his subsequent ex-
amples suggest the waltz as a topic. What stands out in this
statement is that he approaches the waltz as an outmoded and
antiquated device. Indeed, the heyday of middle-class gather-
ings at public dance halls in Vienna and throughout Europe to
revel in waltzes, quadrilles, and polkas was a fading social pas-
time, and the waltz as a solo piano genre for the salon likewise
firmly belonged in the nineteenth century. But, just as Ratner
originally described topics as musical “commonplaces” drawn
from the rich soundscape of eighteenth-century life, so too was
Schoenberg’s Vienna (and Berlin for that matter) infused with
the waltz as it continued to thrive in chamber music, opera,
operetta, and cabaret genres that catered to a variety of tastes
and socioeconomic constituencies. Schoenberg himself notably
composed eleven waltzes for string orchestra in 1897 and or-
chestrated many others. Jennifer Goltz and Adrienne Dickson
have demonstrated that Schoenberg was deeply involved in the
development of cabaret theater in the early 1900s, where
the waltz was a staple of the repertory.48 The assumption that
46 Simms (2003) offers an excellent overview of the contending interpreta-
tions of the work.
47 Frisch (2008, 230).
48 Goltz (2005); Dickson (2009).
 102 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)
example 20. Schoenberg, Pierrot lunaire, “ Serenade,” mm. 1–4. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.
the waltz inherently points to outmoded or “older forms” is
therefore over reliant on an unstated reference to functional
and salon pieces and neglects the vibrant and continued usage
of the waltz topic in various concert and theatrical venues.
There are certainly instances where Schoenberg deliberately
calls upon a waltz token to reference an antiquated era. Most
notably, the composer infuses the “Valse de Chopin” from
Pierrot lunaire with features of Chopin’s idiomatic treatment
of the waltz topic in mm. 30–31, where the piano’s left hand
features an upwards arpeggiated figure characteristic of
Chopin’s waltz accompaniments, and in mm. 38–39, where
the stepwise descent in the piano’s left hand “pah-pahs” again
points to the arch-shaped elaborations of the oom-pah-pah
pattern characteristic of Chopin.49 But more often,
Schoenberg seems to deploy waltz topics to serve as a point of
continuity within the Western musical tradition in which he
operated. On a cognitive level, the waltz and other topics pro-
vided a familiar, though not necessarily archaic, gestural frame-
work in which to present the radically innovative harmonic
language of Schoenberg’s compositions. In this reading,
49 These figures stand out against unmarked treatment of the waltz accom-
paniment in m. 11 and mm. 40–42. But they also enter into uneasy juxta-
positions as Schoenberg inserts his own idiomatic treatment of the waltz
in mm. 24–26 with his characteristic inversion of the waltz pattern (the
“pah-pahs” arising in the lower register under strong downbeats in the
right hand). There is little room for reconciliation here: Schoenberg’s de-
ployment of Chopin’s techniques coincides with the text “melancholisch
düstrer Waltzer” and, as many commentators have noted, themes of
manic depression, illness, and melancholia pervade the movement.
Indeed, Jonathan Dunsby seems to hint at the strategic deployment of
waltz tokens in the movement where he discusses an “overall style of the
piano part” as Chopinesque pitted against passages where “Schoenberg
does put himself into this number, in response to the lines ‘so there lurks
within this music morbid soul-destructive charm.’” Like many scholars
who indirectly remark on twentieth-century topics, Dunsby struggles to
ground his insights within the analytic toolset at his disposal, falling back
on some motivic evidence, and ultimately downplaying his own observa-
tions because “this correspondence cannot be sustained analytically”
(Dunsby 1992, 40). The topical approach proposed here can help reframe
Dunsby’s sound gestural intuitions with an analytic rigor that seems to
elude some topical observations in modernist repertory.
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waltzes present a stylistic continuity rather than signaling a
rupture or disruption from an antiquated era.
It is perhaps more fruitful to understand the waltz topic in
Schoenberg not as ironic but rather as signaling another im-
portant trend in Frisch’s study of modernism. “Historicist
modernism,” according to Frisch, “is not nostalgic or conserva-
tive in any traditional sense. It represents an attempt to bridge
a historical gap without denying it, collapsing it, or retreating
over it to return to the past.”50 Although historicist modernism
is more often associated with Reger and Busoni, for
Schoenberg musical topics are indicative of a complex relation-
ship with compositional predecessors. In the face of
Schoenberg’s radical experimentation with harmony, topics
serve as a bridge or mediation between old and new tech-
niques. Waltz topics thus deliver unfamiliar harmonic content
within a familiar gestural anchor that references both an estab-
lished art music tradition and contemporaneous music trends.
In this sense, tokens of the waltz may indeed remain deliber-
ately unremarkable (or in Hatten’s language, “unmarked”) so
as to provide merely a backdrop to more experimental har-
monic content in the foreground.
Consider what an unmarked waltz in Schoenberg’s reper-
tory might sound like. In Example 20, the “Serenade” from
Pierrot lunaire, marked a slow waltz tempo (sehr langsamer
Walzer), all the essential elements of the waltz are present: tri-
ple meter, melody-accompaniment texture between the piano
and cello, and an oom-pah-pah registral distinction. The effect
may be subtler, especially in the first measure where the cellist
and pianist must understand that their gestures are linked, the
cello presenting the “oom” on B[3 and second “pah” on D5
while the pianist offers the first “pah” on G]4. Many perfor-
mances freely approach the tempo of the passage, treating the
initial thirty-second-note flourish in the piano as a virtuosic
moment and imbibing the gesture with generous rubato or ex-
cessive hesitation. But understood in the broader context of a
waltz topic, the flourish invites only a slight delay of the sec-
ond beat that is a frequent characteristic in waltzes.
50 Frisch (2005, 139).
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
Without a theoretical framework for understanding norma-
tive or unmarked appearances of topics in twentieth-century
repertory, Frisch relies in his reading of this passage on a
model of quotation to interpret the waltz here. He writes that
the “waltz has the character of quotation without being one;
or . . . it is a waltz in the second degree. It may evoke any
number of Viennese waltzes from Lanner through Lehar, but
we would be hard pressed to find a specific model.”51
Quotation, however, relies on a specific archetype. Utilizing
instead Hatten’s type-token framework frees the analyst from
reliance on specific exemplars to invoke a referent. The type
remains sufficiently broad to allow many tokens to fulfill the
qualities necessary for identity without prescribing a single or
limited means of realizing the type. It need not reference a
specific waltz; nor must this absence of a specific referent be
marked. Viewed in isolation, the example may seem distorted
and extreme. When cast against Schoenberg’s broader oeuvre,
where waltz topics are abundant, the passage simply demon-
strates the adaptability of the type within Schoenberg’s idiom.
It is, quite simply, a “well behaved,” unmarked waltz in the
modernist style.
Lest the reader fear I am a curmudgeon to deny any ironic
effect in Schoenberg’s waltzes, let us reconsider the concept
from the perspective of music semiotics, where irony arises as a
discursive function of topics. Hatten has recently argued that
irony is a kind of trope in which “the topic maintains its dis-
tinct character and plays a role in contradistinction to, or even
outright contradiction of the prevailing discourse.”52 In
Schoenberg’s ironic waltzes, this prevailing discourse unfolds
in two ways. First, in Schoenberg’s titled pieces, when a waltz
topic is denied or another topical identity emerges in contrast
to the expected topic, there is an “incongruity between the
meaning of the story told and the manner of telling it.”53 In
other words, the form and content are misaligned. A second
strategy corresponds to what Hatten has termed incompatibil-
ity, in which two topics appear in close juxtaposition, but ulti-
mately fail to merge under a broader stylistic type or umbrella.
As Hatten explains, such instances of troping arise from “a
successive rather than simultaneous fusion of topics.”54
The first technique of irony is evident in the final move-
ment, entitled “Waltz,” of Schoenberg’s Five Piano Pieces, Op.
23. Here form and content are truly out of sync. The inactiva-
tion of the expected waltz topic creates a cognitive dissonance
with the movement’s title, eliciting a contradiction between
the expected structure (a waltz) and the piece’s actual con-
tent.55 Despite the fairly consistent use of 38 meter throughout
51 Frisch (2008, 230).
52 Hatten (2014, 515).
53 Heller (1958, 23).
54 Hatten (2004, 75).
55 Lowe (2002) describes a similar phenomenon in Haydn’s minuet move-
ments where the expected minuet topic may be subverted by any number
of other topics and gestures including horn calls, scotch snaps, and imita-
tion to ironic and comic effect.
103
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example 21. Schoenberg, Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, V, Waltz,
mm. 22–25. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers,
Los Angeles.
the piece, only a hint of the oom-pah-pah rhythm occurs in
two places: first in Example 21 at mm. 23 and 25 and again in
Example 22 at mm. 94 and 96. In the first passage, a strong
downbeat in the lower register followed by an upper punctua-
tion of the second beat is suggestive of the oom-pah-pah ac-
companiment. But the second “pah” on the third beat is
absent, and the accompanimental gesture is never joined by a
melody. This figure is not unheard of in waltz topics, as a sim-
ilar impartial realization of the “oom-pah-pah” is also evident
in m. 4 of the “Serenade” from Pierrot lunaire.56 But in the
“Serenade,” the waltz topic is already established in the first
several measures. In Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, this impartial
realization of the accompaniment in mm. 23 and 25 on its
own is insufficient to present a token of the topic. The gesture
is further diffused in its second appearance in mm. 94 and 96
where not only is the third beat “pah” absent, but the figure
also exhibits Schoenberg’s characteristic registral inversion,
with the “oom” sounding higher than the subsequent “pah.”
Schoenberg thus remarkably avoids a clear topical identifica-
tion while at the same time infusing that ambiguous reference
with his own idiomatic treatment of the waltz accompaniment.
The cumulative effect of these sparse measures is an incom-
plete waltz topic that sounds like a vamping accompaniment,
waiting for the waltz proper to get under way. These two pas-
sages, out of the movement’s total 112 measures, hardly seem
sufficient to invoke a waltz topic consistent with the work’s
title.
The topic is further diffused by the misalignment of me-
lodic presentation and accompaniment at the opening shown
in Example 23. In mm. 1 and 2, a number of waltz character-
istics appear in the melody-plus-accompaniment texture. The
melody exhibits motives and large, disjunct leaps characteristic
of the waltz. But these subtle effects are distorted almost be-
yond recognition when pitted against the accompaniment. No
vestiges of the oom-pah-pah pattern are present. The chords
in the left hand are offset by sixteenth-note rests, delaying a
heavy downbeat and obscuring the waltz characteristics of the
melody. The left hand is either too active with sixteenth notes
56 Observe also Schoenberg’s characteristic registral inversion of the oom-
pah-pah pattern in mm. 94 and 96.
104 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)

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example 22. Schoenberg, Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, V, Waltz, mm. 93–96. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers,
Los Angeles.

example 23. Schoenberg, Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, V, Waltz, mm. 1–7. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.

example 24. Schoenberg, Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, V, Waltz, mm. 74–81. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers,
Los Angeles.

(m. 1) or too inactive with sustained chords (mm. 3–5) to sug-
gest the steady pulse of a waltz accompaniment. The registral
distinctions of the oom-pah-pah pattern are nonexistent. In
the opening twenty-five measures, although the three main
features of the waltz are all present at varying times, they fail
to coincide at any given moment in a manner that would
clearly present a waltz token. This passage is marked at the
level of style: it invokes the waltz through hints of the type’s
characteristics while deliberately avoiding a clear token.
Through correlation the movement is suggestive of a waltz
while at the same time calling attention to and marking what
is absent. Irony exists as the content promised by the work’s ti-
tle is thoroughly denied from the listener. This ironic effect is
heightened because musical references to the waltz are not
wholly absent from the movement. Rather, fleeting and
suggestive hints of the waltz arise and dissipate, continually re-
minding the listener of the unrealized promise of the work’s
title.
The dissonance between title and expected content extends
beyond the unrealized waltz topic to include the appearance of
another, seemingly incompatible, topic. Following a climax in
Example 24 where pulse is distorted in a wash of sound and
then annihilated by the E2 in mm. 77–78 seemingly held for a
timeless pause (an effect enhanced by the new, slower tempo
indication), one of the most rhythmically predictable passages
in the movement emerges at m. 78. The homophonic texture
settles into a clear duple pulse (overriding the actual triple me-
ter in the score) punctuated by short chords in the left hand.
Combined with dotted rhythms in the right hand, the passage
bears all the trappings, albeit briefly, of a march topic, whose
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
example 25. Weighted hierarchy of characteristics of the march topic
characteristic hierarchy is provided in Example 25.57 The
reader might be skeptical of this fleeting identity as it lasts
only several measures. But part of the stylistic competency of
57 A more detailed exegesis of the march hierarchy would detract from the
broader observations of irony in Schoenberg, but for the theorist interested
in the methodology of topical identification proposed here, the march is a
rich topic that warrants further discussion. As with the minuet and waltz
topics, an initial survey of many marches yields a list of essential characteris-
tics. (This survey is greatly aided by the diligent and thorough treatment of
the march’s history in Monelle [2006].) First and foremost, the march type
includes duple time in a moderate pace to enable the soldier to keep pace
with his regiment. This “time-keeping” is also supported in the
accompaniment by bass movement and/or chordal punctuations on the beats
that coincide with the steps. Marches also usually exhibit a melody-plus-
accompaniment texture in which the melody features a relatively simple pro-
file. At the level of “frequent characteristics,” these essential features are
manifest in a variety of ways, including common bass line and percussion
patterns for keeping the duple pulse, the option of simple duple or com-
pound duple meters, and several permutations of dotted or iambic motives
in the melody to aid the soldier in anticipating the march step. At the stylis-
tically particular level, further characteristics can create a number of distinct
march subtypes. The tempo spectrum shown in Ex. 25 is adopted from
Monelle (2006, 119–22), and, although a “march” broadly allows for a wide
range of tempi available to the ambulating soldier, the specific pulse will nu-
ance the sense and purpose of the movement. (See also Allanbrook [1983,
47–48] for commentary on march tempi.) Further distinctions in scoring
and orchestration delineate (perceived) national styles of marches. Of course,
the Turkish march and French march could be topics in their own right. In
this instance, these subtypes may form independent types as frequent and id-
iosyncratic characteristics from the broader march type are elevated to essen-
tial features to form a new hierarchy for the Turkish or French march topic.
For further discussion of the historically informed features of the march
topic, see Monelle (2006, 113–33).
105
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topical listening in twentieth-century repertory requires a finely
attuned ear to the often subtle or fleeting topical references.
Schoenberg is not a composer to establish a “groove” or tex-
tural regularity for extended passages. In his highly gestural,
expressionist style, topical identities appear suddenly and exit
just as quickly. It is therefore all the more significant when a
topical identity is so unambiguously presented with so many
essential features in place as in this march at m. 78. This mo-
ment is teeming with irony as the clearest topical identification
of the piece—a march—stands wholly at odds with the expec-
tations established by the work’s title.
The metrical clash of a duple-meter march topic in the
midst of a work that falsely promises the triple-meter waltz
points toward the second technique of irony through troping.
Describing the concept of “incompatibility,” Hatten explains:
A topic may be more or less compatible with a given back-
ground or surrounding musical context (which may include
other topics). Two or more highly compatible topics may
integrate or merge, forming a trope that is so obvious as to
escape notice. Incompatible topics, on the other hand, may
spark a fusion more akin to creative metaphor. Topics that
are not only incompatible with a background discourse but
also inassimilable by metaphor may provoke a secondary-
level interpretation in terms of irony.58
The imposition of a topic such as the march characterized by a
duple meter into the triple-meter space of a waltz is an exam-
ple of the incompatibility that Hatten describes. But whereas
the waltz is only suggested in Five Piano Pieces, Op. 23, a
58 Hatten (2014, 516).
106 music theory spectrum 39 (2017)
example 26. Schoenberg, Serenade, Op. 24, “ March,” mm. 9–14. Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers, Los Angeles.
direct juxtaposition of waltz and march tokens is evident in
Example 26 from Serenade, Op. 24. In this work, Schoenberg
directly combines the topics in rapid alternation to ironic ef-
fect. Above the irregular groupings of two and three beats in
the cello, the accompanying mandolin, guitar, and viola fill in
the gaps to alternate between the off-beats of a march’s duple
meter and the “pah-pah” of a waltz. Schoenberg reshapes the
melody as well to follow this scheme of alternation, shifting
between conjunct and clipped, accented downbeats (B4–A]4 in
m. 9 and G[5–A[5–B[5–C5 in mm. 11–12 and C5–B[4–C5 in
mm. 13–14) for the march token and a striving leap to the
third beat preceded by a sixteenth-note anticipation (m. 10
and mm. 12–13) characteristic of waltz melodies. The articula-
tions of each token are meticulously notated, separating the
two types by accents and staccatos reserved for the march, and
sforzandi, martelés, and tenuti appearing with the waltz.
Brackets in the cello part highlight the juxtapositions of the
perceived duple- and triple-meter topics. The passage certainly
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presents the “identity crisis” that Frisch describes.59 But when
tropes recur, they become suggestive of new types or even
what Hatten terms “expressive modes.” Given the comingling
of waltz and march types in both Op. 23 and Op. 24, the
“march-in-waltz” and “waltz-in-march” trope might be posited
as a twentieth-century expressive type. This mode encapsulates
a trope previously impossible to earlier composers bound by
strict adherence to prevailing meters. With the freer approach
to rhythm and meter in the twentieth century, this expressive
type is both ironic, by combining seemingly incompatible
types, and at the same time presents historicizing modernism
59 Frisch (2008, 235). Frisch also observes a juxtaposition of “march-like fea-
tures” and a triple pulse characteristic of a waltz in this passage. But his
hearing largely focuses on the duple and triple groupings of the bass line
notes and rests without fully grasping the cumulative effect that the ac-
companying inner voices and melodic contour play in firmly establishing
tokens of both the march and waltz types.
 the musical topic in the twentieth century
by reinvigorating established topics through new and creative
expressive combinations.
conclusion
The hierarchies I have presented in this article are intended as
a starting point for greater dialogue about the cognitive bound-
aries of topical identities across stylistic periods. My aim here
has not been to exclude examples from topical association, but
rather to construct a model that allows for a more precise un-
derstanding of how topics continue to manifest in twentieth-
century repertory, how markedness can be framed for those to-
ken appearances, and how interpretations should be tempered
accordingly. Topic theory will surely draw renewed interest
and applications in the wake of Danuta Mirka’s monumental
edited collection The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory, but
theorizing twentieth-century topics has traditionally fallen at
the fringe of topical studies, where late-eighteenth-century
repertory makes up the main corpus of studies.60 The method
proposed here fulfills exactly this niche for a systematic ap-
proach to the identification and interpretation of topics in
modernist repertory. It also illustrates how confronting the
challenging issues of topical identities in the twentieth century
can illuminate how topics form and evolve in earlier reperto-
ries. In short, topical analysis of eighteenth-century repertory
can also benefit from considerations of modernist works.
For scholars of early-twentieth-century repertory with vary-
ing allegiances to topic theory, it is my hope that this approach
can contribute to a broader trend in musical modernism to re-
think the narrative of stylistic “rupture” with the nineteenth cen-
tury. Byron Almén has argued that topics in Schoenberg are
“evanescent masks” that collude with the atonal language to
form “a larger narrative strategy of modern alienation and psy-
chic disintegration.”61 Some topics, such as the minuet, do in-
deed fall out of use and resurface in the early twentieth century
to call attention to a distant historical past or rupture. But there
are many other topics, such as waltzes and marches, which enjoy
uninterrupted applications throughout the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries. These topics are reinvigorated by their adapta-
tions to new repertories and continue to draw on an active
referential field of imagined and contemporaneous signifieds.
Thus, in addition to the “traditional values such as formal cohe-
sion, thematic connectedness and motivic units” that Jonathan
Cross identifies as Schoenberg’s connective tissue with the nine-
teenth century, the well-established lexicon of Classic and
Romantic topics also emerges as an important point of stylistic
continuity deserving greater analytic attention.62 Framed in
terms of Frisch’s concept of historicist modernism, Schoenberg
reinvigorates topical language by challenging (and ultimately
60 Mirka’s collection continues this emphasis on eighteenth-century reper-
tory, accounting for the unfortunate omission of twentieth-century topics
due to their “complexity of [. . .] socio-cultural meanings” (2014, 87).
61 Almén (2008, 186).
62 Cross (2006, 24).
107
reinforcing) the extremes of topical identities, allowing these
signifiers to remain current, semantically active, and stylistically
conventional in the modernist style.
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Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 39, Issue 1, pp. 83–108, ISSN 0195-6167,
electronic ISSN 1533-8339. V C The Author 2017. Published by Oxford
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DOI: 10.1093/mts/mtx004