Metric Analysis and the Metaphor of Energy: A Way into Selected Songs by Wolf and Schoenberg

This paper provides additions and alternatives to the current practice of metric analysis, drawing on the metaphor of energy, and it engages in close readings of music and text in songs by Wolf and Schoenberg. The metaphor of energy enables in-time interpretations of relations between rhythm and meter, contour, intensification and de-intensification in other domains, and the desire of musical and poetic personae. The approach is also grounded in recent theories of metaphor, cross-domain mapping, and embodied meaning. Analytical readings explore the dynamics of subjectivity in Wolf's "Um Mitternacht" and "An die Geliebte" from the Mörike Songbook and an oscillation between manic excitement and depressive calm in Schoenberg's "Valse de Chopin" from Pierrot Lunaire.