This paper explores Brahms’s engagement with his musical past, examining (1) his recontextualization of eighteenth-century contrapuntal techniques within the musical-formal rhetoric of the nineteenth century and (2) the effects produced by this amalgamation. Focusing on the Scherzo movement from his String Sextet in G major, op. 36 (1864–65), the paper builds on prior discussions by Lewin (1990), McClelland (2010), and Pascall (2013). In particular, I show how the contrapuntal techniques associated with Fuxian species counterpoint and Baroque fugues in the outer sections of the movement’s overarching tripartite form (mm. 1–120 and 251–371) both comport with and destabilize the formal processes and patterns associated with scherzos, particularly those that adopt the interthematic functions of sonata form (e.g., main theme, transition, subordinate theme). Here, Caplin’s discussion of the minuet in Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (1998) serves as a point of departure for interpreting Brahms’s amalgamation of these components. As my analysis suggests, certain combinations alter the illocutionary effects of the individual components, producing marked shifts in the musical “discourse.” Such shifts in the Scherzo movement seem especially pronounced when a formal function that typically conveys the experience of being in either the beginning, middle, or end of a section merges with an older formal process whose temporality or rhetorical aim differs. The paper closes by asking what aesthetic effects and potential meanings arise from the resulting relationships between formal function (inter- and intrathematic) and process (eighteenth-century contrapuntal techniques), formal type (scherzo/minuet) and genre (fugue), and rhetorical mode. Here, I revisit the distinction between conceiving Brahms’s discursive style as a dialectical synthesis of “historical modes of musical thought” (Lewin 1990, 13) and as an instance of dialogism (Bakhtin 1981; Korsyn 1993, 2001).

In Mahler’s Symphonic Worlds, Karol Berger repeats a common refrain: “Mahler does not like to repeat himself literally” (2025, 106). In this study, I argue that Mahler’s repeat sign functions as a formal topic with rhetorical, neo-Classical effect. Elsewhere, literal repetitions occur without the presence of repeat signs, contributing to both interthematic and intrathematic functions. I present a catalog of literal repeats across Mahler’s symphonic output, demonstrating the formal functions they tend to perform: namely, rotational initiation, transition, strophic repetition, and cadential confirmation.

Three case studies follow, all of which address symphonic formal ambiguity. In the first movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, literal repeats occur within the written-out repeated exposition as well as in the recapitulation, but they are oriented around select subsets of the primary and secondary themes, rather than complete thematic zones. The aborted exposition repeat follows the first rotation with an even more troubled attempt in the second. In the recapitulation, literal repeat only appears in the brief transition, even as the rotational ordering of thematic elements returns to a far closer approximation of the first exposition. In the first movement of the Fourth Symphony, Mahler proposes the expositional repeat as a feint, jeopardizing the form-functional success of the first expositional rotation. The ploy is clarified by the second exposition’s outwardly non-identical presentation. Thematic identity is further complicated by the recapitulation, where no part of the primary theme features even near-literal repetition. Instead, literal repeat comes with the arrival of the exposition’s transitional material; but this repetition in the strings has been augmented by orchestral doublings in the woodwinds, expanding into a textural tutti preparation for the fulfillment of the secondary theme’s tonic major reprise. I conclude with a discussion of the section framed by repeat signs in the First Symphony’s opening movement. Recent analyses by Berger and Monahan offer opposing interpretations of the section’s formal function. An understanding of Mahler’s topical use of repeat signs clarifies the form-functional question while also associating the First Symphony with the ironic or tragic expressive strategies of the later repeat-sign expositions of the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Symphonies.

A century ago, August Halm (1914; Rothfarb 2009) proposed that Anton Bruckner's symphonies synthesized Beethoven's harmony-based sonata form with Bach's theme-based fugal practice. In the outer movements of the Sixth Symphony, large formal divisions recall classical-romantic models. Thus, some authors have drawn on Schenkerian (Pell 2018), sonata (Lai 2018), and form-functional theory (Kim 2024) to posit linear sonata plots. Yet chromaticism, off-tonic recapitulations, and few cadences complicate straightforward sonata teleology. Consequently, other scholars emphasize Bruckner's formal discontinuities (Darcy 1997) and thematic harmony (Benjamin 1996, Horton 2004). According to Korstvedt (2001, 2004), the Sixth Symphony’s first movement contains a "dissonant tonal complex" that implies keys that are attained later in the movement. But even authors sensitive to this thematic harmony take a dim view of how Bruckner transforms these themes melodically. Bruckner’s inversions and augmentations, we are told, preserve only rhythm, not pitch (Dahlhaus 1989), or merely reference counterpoint as a topic (Hatten 2001).

In this paper, I argue that contrapuntal derivation and combination play a greater role in Bruckner’s harmony than is usually assumed. I show how at important formal junctures of the Sixth Symphony, Bruckner’s outwardly free inversions of thematic material strictly invert the key leading tone F/E-sharp. In the first movement, Bruckner announces the E-sharp potential of F with thematic inversions. In the second theme area, the F-E resolution is associated with plagal cadences that get recomposed into authentic cadences once E-sharp-F-sharp takes primacy. This eventually permits hearing a large F-sharp countertonic to A major. The finale takes up the falling F-sharp-F-E form from the end of the first movement and announces its structural inversion with surface inversions. In sum, my analyses clarify August Halm's still-misunderstood claim that Bruckner's symphonic form synthesizes Bach's melodic permutations with the harmonic telos of Beethoven's sonata form. Bruckner resolves these leading tones in recomposed links between formal blocks, demonstrating combinatorial-contrapuntal thinking even when the texture is non-polyphonic. This exploration of melodic potentials intervenes in the sonata process by introducing a timeless, combinatorial logic into linear temporality.