Analysis from a Dualist Perspective: “Frühling” from Richard Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder

The paper presents an analysis of Richard Strauss’s “Frühling”, the first of his Last Four Songs composed in 1948. I adopt the harmonic dualism of Moritz Hauptmann and Hugo Riemann—a theoretical perspective which reflects the ideals of German Romanticism. I contrast this approach with Schenkerian and Neo-Riemannian analyses of the song by Richard Kaplan and Richard Cohn. Two features central to my analysis are: 1) the rejection of enharmonic equivalence, and 2) the function of a special type of augmented sixth, a “Frühling sixth”, which propels the music forward and gives the song its characteristic chromatic sound. Using Riemann’s Schritt/Wechsel system, I chart the large-scale harmonic moves of the piece on a ‘Klangnetz’, showing how the various harmonic transformations articulate certain key areas and reflect the meaning of the song’s text.