Strategic Incompletion in Clara Schumann’s Lieder

This essay examines two songs by Clara Schumann (1819–1896) that explore the strategic incompletion of the fundamental structure in two interesting ways: (1) delaying the first appearance of the tonic harmony until nearly the end of the song through an expanded auxiliary cadence, and (2) establishing the tonic harmony early on as expected but concluding the song on the structural dominant, resulting in a “permanent interruption.” By purposely suppressing aspects of the fundamental structure through the devices mentioned here, composers can charge music with dramatic tension and rich expressive potential. These two techniques represent opposite ends of a spectrum, one concerned with incompletion directed at the beginning of the fundamental structure, the other with incompletion directed at its conclusion. More generally, composers may draw upon the abstract notion of strategic incompletion to depict any number of musico-poetic sentiments in a song.