In the latter, the Pastoral topic appears at the start of the piece and introduces the Fisherman, a content peasant. He evokes the wind and thanks her for helping him with his work. He seems satisfied to be at his work with no hidden agenda or schemes developing further on in the text. In Gurrelieder the topic invokes a forest in which there is also an Alpine Horn present in the bar before figure one. It presents an E flat chord which was the standard key for German hunting horns and was traditionally used in music to evoke the woodland, including the mythical extension of that (nymphs, dryads, etc.) which returns us to the idealistic notion of the pastoral (Monelle 2000, p.40). This view of the lower classes became a conventional code of the Classical period and as mentioned above continued through to the 1900s. But it is also this type of idealistic symbolism that some composers at the start of the 20thcentury appeared to want to distance themselves from. The idea that the poor led happy carefree lives full of love and merry dances was replaced to start to show the common members of the public in a more contemporary, realistic light. Through the combination of different dance forms a more specific picture of a given situation or a character’s personal status can be illustrated. An example of this is the combination of Waltz and Jazz, described by Monelle as follows: Furthermore, as a hermeneutist [Hatten] is able to show that topics may be juxtaposed and may condition each other; there may be ‘pastoral tragedy’, ‘learned rustics’, and so forth. (Monelle 2006, 23, citing Hatten 1994)
This set of Topics brings a flexibility whereby the signifiers change depending on the conditions of the situation. The signifier’s ingredients, while easy to recognise in one piece of music, might be drastically altered in another though remaining innately recognisable. Alternately a topic with many different aspects, like the various dance forms, can use a combination of these aspects to create a diverse atmosphere or implication. For instance, the combination of the Waltz and Jazz forms in Lulu, underline both the lower class element of the character and the scandal of the situations Lulu creates around herself. The Waltz originated in the 17th-century and appears in both Lulu and Wozzeck. Designed as a dance for the lower classes, the close contact with one’s partner’s body contrasted sharply with the stately dances of the aristocracy – the minuets, polonaises, and quadriphilles – in which one kept one’s distance. The Waltz was the first closed position dance, originally performed with arms twisted at shoulder level, the closed hold was soon introduced. By the end of the 18th-century, this old Austrian peasant dance had been accepted by most of the higher society.3
Heikkila remarks:
The Waltz was criticised on moral grounds by those opposed to its close hold and rapid movements.
In July of 1816, the waltz was included in a ball given in London by the Prince Regent. A blistering editorial in The Times a few days later stated: ‘We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English
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