Quantitative Analysis of passaggi and tessitura in Franz Schubert’s Erlkönig

Objective. This pilot study expands on the concept first described by Nicole Pizzorni et al. determining the total performance time spent in a passaggio register transition in a piece of music. This study’s objective is to expand on this metric and develop a generalizable method of musical analysis revealing the total and percent of performance time a piece of music requires a singer to sing in a passaggio area.

Methods. Paul Patinka’s method of quantitative musical analysis using a universal rhythmic subdivision was used to describe the compositional range, musical tessitura, melodic directionality, cycle dose, time dose, and recovery time of the musical setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749–1832) poem Erlkönig by Franz Schubert (1797–1828). A generalized definition of a High passaggio (Hp), Middle passaggio (Mp), and Low passaggio (Lp) for a generically defined High Voice (HV), Medium Voice (MV), and Low Voice (LV) was developed. Basic calculations on data from the tessituragram analysis table determined the total and percent of performance time in each passaggi area.

Results. Results indicate that a HV treble clef range singer performing Erlkönig would spend 34.6 seconds (s) or 21.6% of performance time singing in the Hp, 25.5s or 15.9% in the Mp, and 7.1s or 4.3% in the Lp. A HV bass clef range singer performing Erlkönig would spend 0.0s or 0.0% of performance time singing in the Hp, 34.6s or 21.6% in the Mp, and 73.1s or 21.6% in the Lp.

Conclusions. This paper offers a method to analyze and compare musical pieces based on the time spent singing in singing passaggio areas by adapting data collected in tessituragram analysis. This assessment further informs practitioners of the inherent difficulty of pieces of music and appears generalizable to many compositions and singing styles.