ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how metrical processes and the controlled balance of metrical consonances and dissonances can serve to shape musical forms. There are many ways of articulating formal boundaries, but moving decisively from one fairly stable metrical consonance to another is one of the more effective in terms of being easily identifiable by the listener. The chapter also explores the role that metrical stability and instability plays in the formal structures of two specific works: in the first movement of Schumann’s String Quartet, Op. 41, No. 1, and throughout Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn. It aims to identify six types of formal functions: expository, recapitulatory, introductory, developmental, transitional, and cadential. The chapter examines how metrical changes and dissonances are used to mark formal boundaries and communicate formal functions. The hypermetrical dissonance also helps to articulate the finale’s form-functional shifts at the end.
