Quantitative Analysis of Passagi and Tessitura in Franz Schubert’s Erlkönig
Description
This pilot study expands on a concept first described by Nicole Pizzorni et al. which determined the total time singing in a passaggio (or register transition) in a piece of music. The objective of this study is to develop a generalizable method of musical analysis to reveal the total time and percent of performance time a piece of music requires a singer to sing in a generalized passaggio area.
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Objective. This pilot study expands on a concept first described by Nicole Pizzorni et al. which determined the total time singing in a passaggio (or register transition) in a piece of music. The objective of this study is to develop a generalizable method of musical analysis to reveal the total time and percent of performance time a piece of music requires a singer to sing in a generalized passaggio area. Methods. Paul Patinka’s method of quantitative musical analysis using a universal rhythmic subdivision was used to describe the compositional range, musical tessitura, melodic directionality, cycle dose, time dose, and recovery time of the musical setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) poem Erlkönig by Franz Schubert. (1797-1828). A generalized High Passaggio (HP), Middle Passaggio (MP), and Low Passaggio (LP), range was the developed for a generic High Voice (HV), Medium Voice (MV), and Low Voice(LV). The total time and percent of performance time spent in each of these passaggi areas was calculated using the analysis table developed for tessituragram analysis. Results. Results indicate that a HV singer (tenor) performing Erlkönig would spend 0.0 seconds (s) (0.0%) of performance time singing in their HP, 34.6 s (21.6%) of time in their MP, and 73.1 s (21.6%) of time in their LP. Conclusions. By adapting data points collected through tessituragram analysis this paper offers a method by which to compare musical pieces based on challenges that may be associated with singing in the passaggio. This method is useful to assess the time a singer might vocalize within a passaggio event, further informs practitioners of the inherent difficulty of pieces of music and appears generalizable to many compositions and singing styles.