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material in a dialectic way. These chords lose their local structuring 
power, and the form is realized at another level. 
Even within the first scene there are several closed forms or 
interlocking structures. Time and causality are parameters that 
articulate the music with the drama. In the final example below 
(Example 8) 1 have joined together dramatic plot and musical 
development, so that we can see how the different musical phases 
follow the plots dramatic evolution. Weill assimilated the logic of the 
l% epic" development of this narration in the music. Various moods in

the plot are reflected in the different musical styles: instrumental, 
spoken or sung parts, lyrical style, song style. Even more, music 
becomes a means of managing the dramatic evolution, creating a 
context, controlling the action. 
Following the instrumental exposition, both motives (A and B in 
Example 8) reappear in measure 45 as a synthesis of the foregoing 
introduction section, but with a banjo accompaniment and in song 
style (see Example 3). The mood of the instrumental introduction 
continues but in a different sense.  Instead of a traditionally 
grandiloquent introduction, Weill uses song style as incidental music, 
establishing a false causal relation to what came before. Thus, the 
passage negates the instrumental introduction in order to reveal an 
implicit irony about the appearance of the first characters: hooligans 
on the run. Then, in measure 110 the function of the beginning 
rhythmic cell changes: it becomes a r7owthat regulates the different 
phases of the plot. For example, the widow Begbick is interrupting a 
flow when she decides to found a city. And once the decision has 
been made, the musical flow can resume. Moreover, this can explain 
the use of other rhythmic figures in this number. Kim Kowalke noticed 
the importance of such units in Weill's works: 
Many musical numbers from his theatrical works are based on 
rhythmic cells, which have overt gestic function but cannot 
be ascribed to any dance model. These musical numbers 
usually depend on a single, readily identifiable rhythmic 
kernel, although occasionally several contrasting figures are 
employed within a single unit of musical structure. That Weill's 
mature style is so consistent from work to work across various 
genres can be at least partially explained by the utilization of 
a number of vividly defined rhythmic gestures.10 
We can assimilate the beginning rhythmic cell to a Greek syllabic 
pattern: the peon, composed of one long and three brief syllables 
(Example 5). 
 
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