Sounding Within: Structural Inner Voices in Brahms's Piano Works

Diego Cubero, Indiana University

Nineteenth-century homophonic music draws a clear distinction between a structural outer-voice framework (melody and bass) and the supporting inner voices. This paper examines several instances in Brahms's piano works where an inner voice functions nonetheless as the structural melodic line. The main focus is on three compositional techniques that render inner voices structurally salient. These are: framing the melody into an inner voice, employing compound melodies that imply a structural inner voice, and transforming an accompanying inner voice into an upper-voice melody. First I will consider these separately, examining the particular musical context in which each tends to arise. Then, a detailed analysis of Brahms's Intermezzo in A minor, Op. 76 no. 7 illustrates how these techniques can interact within a single work.

For a style in which the melody normally appears in the highest register, its concealment into an inner voice in each of the works discussed in this paper is structurally and expressively marked. If, as Frederic Rzewski argues, the partly hidden quality of the inner voices in Classical and Romantic music could be considered to add a dimension of depth to the music, the structural melody in each of these works may be heard as sounding deep within. More specifically, I would argue that such use of inner voice is expressive of the highly spiritualized sense of inwardness cultivated during the nineteenth century.