What this implies is that the entire symphony has a ‘hidden’ programmatic structure behind it that relies on ever-changing music and invention. Haydn’s famous ‘Farewell Symphony’ (No.45) is considered by some musicologists to be a fully through-composed piece of music. Other notable classical pieces derive their structure from through-composing. This could not easily have worked if he has elected to use a strophic form. With every new verse, Schubert adjusts the harmony, rhythms, and vocal register to portray the emotions of the scene. One of the more well-known ‘Lieder’ is ‘The Elf King’ (Der Erlkönig), in which Schubert imaginatively uses the through-composed form to allow himself to capture the characters and frightening story he chose to set. As mentioned earlier many of Schubert’s songs are composed in a strophic manner but there are equally some that follow the concept of a through-composed piece. If you wish to make a musical comparison between the two musical forms, then perhaps begin with the music of Franz Schubert. If we consider that a verse and chorus approach to songwriting would be represented with the letters A (verse) and B (chorus), then a through-composed piece would be represented like this: A, B, C, D, E….What this sounds like is effectively different music for each part of the poem or text. If then a composer is aiming to set a text whose content, mood, and even meter is changeable, then it is most likely that a through-composed structure will yield more appealing results. What separates the strophic from the ‘through-composed’ is that instead of the music remaining unchanged for each stanza, the music changes with the poem or text. The strophic song structure has quite a legacy that presents quite a challenge for the next musical form: ‘through-composed’. Many of these pieces work as the general mood of the piece remains largely unchanged. The well-known Johnny Cash song ‘I Walk The Line’ (1956), is another song in support of strophic form alongside Simon and Garfunkel’s haunting ‘Scarborough Fair’. Amongst my favorite Dylan songs include ‘The Times They’re A Changing’,Īnd ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’ to name only two. Many of these have gone on to sell millions of records and been covered by an impressive collection of artists.
Looking at the popular side of musical culture Bob Dylan virtually built a career writing strophic songs. Strictly speaking, Die Forelle is a ‘modified’ strophic song, but the essence of the form is clear. 32: D.550), composed by Schubert in 1817 is one of the best examples of a highly successful and popular strophic song.
The form has been extensively used by several classical composers including Haydn and Schubert. This alone stands as a fine example of why strophic songs work as a musical form despite what might be thought of as a simple structure. One of the most famous strophic tunes, perhaps even the most famous is the song ‘ Amazing Grace‘. It might appear that a strophic song would struggle to maintain any kind of interest with a listening audience but when you examine strophic songs more closely, you soon realize the appeal is almost universal. Some songs as you might expect, change of text for each verse, but others are more limited to the extent where you would describe the structure as simply ‘A, A, A…’ What perhaps appeals more to either a performer or audience is a verse text that changes but a musical setting that broadly remains unchanged. It is a popular form for a song as it is simple but highly effective. In this sense, strophic songs are amongst some of the oldest and newest around. The essence of strophic form is that each verse is sung to the same music. Whilst some terminology refers to a musical structure in a more general way the term ‘strophic’ tends to be used to describe songs. The question for this article is really whether or not one has an advantage or appeal that is greater than the other, or is there not such a remarkable difference between them? Strophic Vs Through Composed Both ‘strophic’ and ‘through-composed’ structures or forms of music have held a strong and important place in musical history for many years. In other words, how a certain piece or pieces are put together. Both of the terms in the title above refer to a type of musical structure.
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