An Anti-Aging Harmonic Formula from Brahms

This month I was kindly invited to produce a guest post for the important blog of Dr. Timothy Chenette, a fellow music thinker. But I'll offer a follow-up here.

In my post for Dr. Chenette, I suggested how pop music and classical music approach the diatonic-diminished-triad-made-major-triad in ways that both mirror one another, and still sound considerably different from one another. For example, the I - bVII - IV - I (or, in another interpretation, I - IV/IV - IV - I) is a pop-rock trademark, but this kind of progression is quite rare in classical music, as is the closely related blues-based V - IV - I, whose kinship to I - IV/IV - IV - I can be shown by renotating (and hearing) it as V/IV - IV/IV - I/IV - I.

But this is not completely unheard in classical music. Brahms's choral work Nänie appears to make frequent and purposive use of the rare V - IV progression, more so than any other work of Brahms to my knowledge. Moreover, the use of this "retrogression" befits the text, which juxtaposes perfection, beauty, and their apparent immortality with their eventual and inevitable demise. When IV goes "as it should" to V, the arrow of time and aging points "as it should," driving toward tonic's end with normative predominant-dominant syntax. But when V is followed by IV, one could hear a reversal of this process. With this in mind, consider this excerpt and my analysis. The back-to-back V - IV and IV - V may not perfectly coincide with the back-to-back "die Schöne [the beautiful]" and "vergeht [perishes]," but it's close enough for me.