Beethoven uses motives to generate material for much of a movement. In his Piano Sonata op. 90 in E minor the motive is introduced right away at the beginning of the piece. In the example shown below, there are two parts of the motive, the first one being the descending e minor scale that spans a minor 3rd, followed by a 4th interval leap. This perfect 4th leap has an important developmental role in this movement, and will be apparent in later motives as well. The second motive, shown by the arrow at the right, is slightly different, although there is a rhythmic pattern happening here, with the same motive of dotted quarter notes followed by an eighth note and a quarter note. The second motive is pretty similar in terms of the rhythmic pattern, with some repeating tones and instead of leaping up a fourth, Beethoven bridges the gap with a neighboring tone, creating an ascending G major scale.
In the next measure, Beethoven uses the same exact principles of the rhythmic and melodic motives, except that they are transposed up.
In this next example, Beethoven used the same principle with the motive from before, except he reversed it, with the leap of the 4th followed by the descending scale.
In this passage, Beethoven kept the rhythm from the theme, although not in all of the measures. The principle of the neighboring tone still exists, although this time it is an upper neighboring tone.
In this next section, Beethoven presented the melodic motive of the perfect 4th leap and the rhythmic motive of the upbeat-downbeat swing.
This combination of repeated tones and leaping fourths gets developed until Beethoven presents the second theme of the sonata. In the second theme, the motive is presented in inversion (leaping down a fourth instead of up) and the lower neighbor motive is shortened to just two pitches. The repeated tones are also present.
In the development, Beethoven repeats the motive in its entirety two times in different keys. Then Beethoven fragments the motive and only uses the lower neighbor motive. Throughout this whole passage, the rhythm of the opening is maintained.
In the next example, Beethoven utilizes fragments of the lower neighboring tone, keeping the rhythmic motive from the first part intact.
Transitioning back to the recapitulation, Beethoven uses the principle of the three-note scale from the theme in canon between the right and the left hand with different rhythms but the same pitches of G-F#-E emphasized over and over until we return back to the original theme and motive in the recapitulation.
The recapitulation consists of mostly the same ideas and motives from the exposition with the all of the rhythmic, repeating tone, neighboring tone, and the leap of 4th motives remaining intact. Oftentimes Beethoven would ignore the rhythm and only use the pitches. Sometimes Beethoven uses rhythms from the motives but without the pitches of the motive.
There are a lot of similarities in Brahms’s work. Those similar procedures prevail in his Intermezzo op. 118 no. 2. Brahms used the motives that occur in the theme in various ways throughout the whole movement. Here is the theme:
The circle in the excerpt marks the motive that Brahms will later develop and use in this movement. The motive itself consists of a step and then a leap in the opposite direction. The theme and the motive then are repeated one more time. In the example below, the step motive is inverted as an upper neighboring tone. It is also in a different rhythm than the first theme, but it is presented with the same idea.
Brahms then switches the motive that was played in the right hand to the left hand as an accompaniment rather than the melody line, with exactly the same rhythmic, whole step, and leap characteristics of the motive. From all of those examples above, we can see that Brahms utilized the principles of those motives in different manners, from changing the rhythm, to inverting them, to maintaining the melody-accompaniment relationship.
The following excerpt shows the combination of 2 motives. The top line presents the exact same motive, except Brahms inverted the interval, going upwards instead of down. The middle voice displays the exact same motive as the top line, in canon.
In the B section, the same motive of the leaping interval and the step appears again in canon style between the right hand and the left hand.
To compare Beethoven and Brahms, both of them use motives from the theme throughout the whole movement, and develop those ideas. However, Brahms has a more contrapuntal approach than Beethoven in so far as he included those motives in 2 voices and lines in canon style.
In Schoenberg’s Klavierstucke op. 11 no. 1, he presents the motive right from the start of the piece, just as Brahms and Beethoven did.
The motive itself consists of a half step, and major and minor thirds. The pitches of the theme motive are B G# G A F E (circled above).
A couple measures after the first theme and motive is introduced, Schoenberg
transposes up the theme with the same motive, although this time he changed some of the intervals to be wider apart in order to create more intensity in the
motive. Notice how in the first example the interval of the last two notes is down a minor 2nd, however in the second example Schoenberg modified it to go up a minor 2nd, creating a different mood and feeling.
Similarly to the way Brahms developed his material, Schoenberg uses the motives in this excerpt with altered rhythms and in canon. He shortens the note value, from quarter notes to just eighth notes.
In the B section, it might seem like Schoenberg is using a brand new idea. However, he cleverly hid the melodic theme with the same interval motives and the same rhythm.
Comparing these three composers, both Schoenberg and Brahms tend to be more flexible in terms of the rhythm than Beethoven. Brahms and Schoenberg frequently change the interval leap of their motives in order to create a somewhat more distorted version (Notice in Beethoven’s op. 90 all of the intervals tend to be perfect 4ths, just like the theme). All three of them similarly started their theme and motive from the very beginning of the piece.
In Debussy’s Prelude no. 2 Book I “Voiles”, he introduced the theme and motives at the beginning of the piece. It is similar to how Beethoven, Brahms, and Schoenberg established it. The motives themselves consist of a five-note downward scale, an octave leap, and a whole step. This theme has the sonority of a whole-tone scale, which is a technique Debussy is known to use frequently.
Immediately, Debussy inverted the scale into an upward motion, and this time he used just three of the pitches instead of the whole five notes. The last note is held until the next measure, creating a syncopation. What is striking here is the use of the Bb as a pedal point throughout the whole work, suggesting its tonal center.
The next example below uses the first theme, without the octave jump and the whole step. In the left hand the Bb pedal point keeps reappearing, while the middle part plays a whole-tone scale, which is the base of the theme itself.
Though not as obvious as the previous examples, the following passage (see next page) contains many of the motives from the theme. The 1st and 2nd measures contain the whole-step motive with the same rhythm as the theme, although this time it is ascending instead of descending. In measure 4, we see the octave leap, one of the motives from the theme. From measure 5-8, Debussy used both the whole-tone scale and step motives, however this time they are in shorter, compressed
rhythms. Debussy continues to develop those motives in several different ways.
Here we can see the whole-step in a variety of triplets and a grace note
In the next passage, Debussy develops the two-note step motive with the triplet and a grace note in the right hand of the piano.
In this excerpt, Debussy emphasizes the whole-step over and over.
In these three bars, the whole-step motive of D-E keeps on going without ever stopping, while the left hand plays the whole-tone scale, and the Bb pedal point continues. These entire complicated layers show Debussy’s genius in developing such simple materials. It is a reminder of the Javanese gamelan instrument, which shares the same principle of having each individual layer of music. Furthermore, the eastern style of music has the principle of music that goes on forever and forever without a sense of direction. This eastern style influenced Debussy highly in much of his music.
Another influence in Debussy’s music is the use of the eastern style of the pentatonic scale. This influence of the five-note scale was first encountered by Debussy at the Paris Exposition in 1889, when a group of gamelan musicians performed. In the excerpt below, Debussy used the scale motive before he included a pentatonic scale mode,
Debussy’s treatment of the motive is flexible in a way that makes the motive less clearly defined. The scale can sometimes be in 3, 4 or 5 notes. The two-note step motive is also altered to be a third when the mode changes to pentatonic. The rhythm is also flexible and often changes note values and metric placement.
In Bartok’s Piano Sonata, he establishes the theme and the motive in the beginning of the piece. The materials that generate the motives of this movement are the three note scales (1st measure), overlapping between two half-step notes that create dissonance (circled in the 1st measure), and repeated notes (ostinato pattern) in accented offbeats. These materials will be apparent as the generating materials throughout the movement.
Bartok is well known for his use of ostinatos (repeated notes or patterns) in his music. In this next measure, he generated an idea of the repeated motive completely from the ostinato pattern. There are three different lines, in which each individual one consists of different ostinato figures. He also uses the other motive of the accented notes on the offbeat. Bartok takes the offbeat repeated note idea and augments it so that the repeated notes come on different beats. Additionally, the dissonance created by the half step exists in this excerpt.
Bartok then further explores the materials by combining the motives together:
Bartok varies the 3-notes scale, sometimes going upwards or downwards, while the step motive, dissonant half-step notes, and the repeating notes pattern are still present.