Can one really write about finales generically? Is the finale of a Bach concerto the same beast as that of a Bruckner symphony? In some respects, it obviously is. Both movements deliver a multi-movement work back into the void of silence framing it. Both continue and "wrap up" the argument of the preceding movements. A first movement starts without preconditions. Its opening bars inhabit a realm of freedom because they are inscribed on a blank sheet. Progressively during the same movement, and with each successive movement, the options narrow. By the time the finale arrives, a charge has accumulated, and this movement has the task of discharging it.
However, there is no single, normative way of doing this. The most common method is to begin the resolution of tension at the very start of the movement, producing what I term a "relaxant" finale. This type dominated in instrumental music until the Romantic period and remains valid today.
The tension can also be resolved within the finale itself. Such a finale aims to provide a grand climax to the work. If necessary, its structure departs from conventional canons in order to fulfil the movement’s mission vis-à-vis the whole work more successfully. I call this a "summative" finale. A third type has won acceptance only in the twentieth century. This is the "valedictory" finale: a finale in slow tempo that subsides or dies away, so that, in effect, the tension relaxes only after the last note. This threefold system of classification underpins my study.
This is a deliberately provocative study. It adheres to a tradition of generalism within musicology that is today seemingly rather rare among scholars, and also rather suspect. What informs it is less my experience as a researcher (largely confined to the music of the late Baroque) than my experience as a university teacher. Certainly, I have invested a lot of preparation in it, reading widely in several languages. Even so, I have to admit that such a broad topic cannot be investigated as exhaustively as one would like. But this does not mean that one should either avoid broad topics or never start writing. All along, I have had my eye on music lovers as well as musicologists, despite the difficulty of finding a kind of language that is both digestible enough for the first and rigorous enough for the second. To aid clarity, I have included a large number of tables and music examples. The likelihood is that you will find the composers in whom you are most interested somewhere among its pages. After all, almost every composer writes finales.
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 1-3 deal with issues concerning instrumental finales in general. They examine what earlier commentators have said about them and identify some general features of final movements that took root in vocal genres (primarily, the Mass and the Magnificat) long before multi-movement instrumental cycles came into being. Two important devices applied are ‘cumulation’ (an increase in scale, for example via the addition of extra voices) and ‘regression’ (a reversion to forms of the musical material more primitive than those used previously). I also consider the rationale behind the conventional distinction between ‘movements’ (which join together to form a cycle and ‘sections’ (which succeed each other within the same movement). Movements in the modern sense turn out, in fact, to be an invention of the mid-seventeenth century, so far as instrumental genres are concerned.
Chapters 4– 6 consider each of the three main types of finale in turn in order to illustrate my typology. The argument ranges widely, touching on literary theory, rhetoric, narrativity, organicism, and the vexed question of musical ‘weight’.
Chapter 7 looks at hybridity in finales. For instance, it examines the last movement of Haydn’s ‘Farewell’ Symphony, which it describes as a ‘double’ finale. In contrast, the movement closing Schumann’s Second Symphony is a ‘divided’ finale, since it radically alters its thematic substance half way through.
In Chapter 8 I trace the history of the finale in five important instrumental genres: symphony, suite, sonata, string quartet (and its relatives), symphony, and concerto. The core period studied is 1700– 1900, although reference is frequently made to music written before and after. Interesting differences between the five traditions emerge. For example, the suite and the concerto have favoured the ‘relaxant’ finale, whereas the sonata and symphony have proved hospitable to the two other types.
Chapter 9 addresses the relationship between codas (sections ending movements) and finales (movements ending cycles). Both display the generic features of closure identified in the introductory chapters. However, the fact that one is a complete movement, whereas the other is only part of a movement, sets them apart.
In the last chapter I allow myself a long excursus: a discussion of the finales of each of Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets. The choice is not arbitrary, for I aim to show how an exceptionally versatile composer can vary the kind of finale he chooses to write in response to particular circumstances affecting each composition. The excursus serves, in fact, as an extended case study that tests out the book’s ideas in a controlled environment where composer, medium, and genre stay constant.
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