HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEORG!                    audioscoresatisfactory      exhibits Phase B activity

After this performance of Happy Birthday, I made two written attempts to find suitable realizations of a stretto passage using the song’s melody, which can be seen here below:

recording made on December 2nd, 2014:

Of all the music presented in Playing Schumann Again for the First TimeHappy Birthday Georg! best fulfills one of Czerny's categories for extemporizing music in which the performer "executes a single theme in all the typical forms to be found in composition[; ...] incidentally, it should not be concealed that this manner of extemporizing is the hardest of all" (Czerny 1829, 43; my translation).

 

[0:000:29] This introductory passage takes the form of a waltz, or any kind of quicker dance in tertiary meter.

 

[0:301:07] This passage could easily resemble the first movement of a traditional sonata in duple meter.

 

[1:081:57] Two variations of the preceding passage emerge, keeping the melody intact and altering the accompanimental patterns.

 

[1:582:32] This passage could be described as scherzo-like.

 

[2:333:03] Music in the parallel minor and with a more serious affect, provides some contrast.

 

[3:043:26] This march-like passage also takes place in the parallel minor.

 

[3:273:47] This stretto passage displays some contrapuntal and imitative characteristics. The two notated attempts at stretto that can be seen here to the left were written down after the performance as alternative material for this passage.

 

[3:484:08] The performance concludes with a march-like coda.