Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco

Urlinie

(Ger.: ‘fundamental line’).

In Schenkerian analysis (see Analysis, §II, 4), the conceptual upper voice of a piece in its simplest terms, represented by the diatonic conjunct descent to the tonic from the 3rd, 5th or octave. The interval encompassed by the Urlinie and the register in which it appears are determined by the piece itself, together with the criteria the analyst uses to fix its starting point. Because Urlinie was the first term Schenker coined in connection with his new analytical method, it became the word most closely identified with his method, as well as the one whose meaning changed most radically in the course of his later theoretical writings.

Schenker used Urlinie for the first time in the foreword to his critical edition with commentary (the Erläuterungsausgabe) of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A op.101, published in 1920 (see Analysis, §II, 4 fig.18). Yet it is clear from his analysis of op.101, and in the essays in his next series of publications (Der Tonwille, 1921–4), that the term was at first understood not as an archetypal melodic line, but rather as a reduction of the surface of a piece that left its phrase structure and broad harmonic-contrapuntal outline intact. The Urlinie of these earlier analyses is not only polyphonic in texture, but often preserves the bar-lines of the piece in question. Thus the original meaning of Urlinie corresponds rather more closely to what Schenker was eventually to call the musical ‘foreground’ of a piece (see Layer), and explains why he continued to use the expression Urlinie-Tafel for the musical representation of the foreground layer in his analyses.

The term is often rendered into English as ‘fundamental line’, but some writers believe that it is so specialized, so quintessentially Schenkerian, that it is better left untranslated.

WILLIAM DRABKIN

Urlus, Jacques [Jacobus]

(b Hergenrath, 9 Jan 1867; d Noordwijk aan Zee, 6 June 1935). Dutch tenor. He studied in Amsterdam with Cornelie van Zanten and others and made his operatic début in Utrecht in 1894 as Beppe (Pagliacci). He sang with the Netherlands National Opera, 1894–9, then in Leipzig, 1900–14. One by one he mastered the leading Wagnerian parts, for which his robust yet sensitive singing and declamatory gifts well fitted him. He made his London début at Covent Garden in spring 1910 as Tristan during the Beecham opera season. In 1911 he was called to Bayreuth, where his first part was Siegmund. He sang regularly at the Metropolitan Opera, 1913–17, becoming its foremost Wagnerian tenor. From 1917 onwards he accepted no fixed engagements, but settled in the Netherlands and toured extensively in Europe and the USA. He was also an excellent concert singer. His many recordings, 1903–24, chronicle every facet of his career and confirm his fine-grained voice and innate sense of style. He published an autobiography, Mijn loopbaan (‘My career’; Amsterdam, 1930).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

O. Spengler: Jacques Urlus (New York, 1917)

P. and J. Dennis: ‘Jacques Urlus’, Record Collector, xxvi (1980–81), 245–81 [with discography]

CARL L. BRUUN/ALAN BLYTH

Urmawī, al-.

See Safī al-Dīn.

Urner, Catherine Murphy

(b Mitchell, IN, 23 March 1891; d San Diego, 30 April 1942). American composer and singer. At the University of California, Berkeley, she won the first George Ladd Prix de Paris, enabling her in 1920 to go to Paris to study composition with Koechlin, who considered her remarkably gifted. From 1921 to 1924 she was director of vocal music at Mills College, Oakland, California. She was active as a composer and singer in the USA, France and Italy, and first performances of her music were given in Paris by the Société Musicale Indépendante and at the Salle Pleyel. A talented singer, she specialized in Amerindian melodies, which she used in many of her compositions to create a stark, poetic effect. Through her teaching Urner transmitted the classical French heritage of Koechlin; she translated several of his treatises and arranged for him to give lectures in California. Koechlin regarded her as influential upon his own modal–contrapuntal style. She collaborated with him on various works and he orchestrated her Esquisses normandes (1929), the first performance of which was given by the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic in Berkeley in 1990. In 1937 Urner married the Californian composer and organist Charles Shatto.

WORKS

(selective list)

Choral and orch: Esquisses normandes, suite, 1929, rev. and orchd Koechlin, 1945; Rhapsody of Aimairgin of the Golden Knee, chorus, orch, 1936; 3 Movts, chbr orch, 1938; Fl Conc., 1940; c30 other works

Songs (all for S, pf): 4 mélodies (Paris, 1928): Ici-bas (Sully-Prudhomme), La lune se lève (J. Madeleine), Le papillon (A.M.L. de Lamartine), Colloque sentimental (P. Verlaine); 6 Songs (Paris, 1928): Sonnet (M. Meagher), Song (I.R. McCleod), Come away, death (W. Shakespeare), Music I heard with you (C. Aitken), Dusk at Sea (T. Jones), The Lake Isle of Innisfree (W.B. Yeats); c90 others

Chbr and solo inst: Petite suite, fl, vn, va, vc, 1930; Jubilee Suite, fl, pf, 1931; Barcarolle, org, 1932; Sonata, C, vn, pf, 1942; 2 Traditional American Indian Songs, org; Pf Suite for Children; The Mystic Trumpeter, tpt; other pieces, pf

Also transcrs., arrs.

MSS in US-BE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

E.K. Kirk: ‘A Parisian in America: the Lectures and Legacies of Charles Koechlin’, CMc, xxv (1978), 50–68

C. Shatto and D. Zea: The Musical Works of Catherine Urner (MS, 1983, The F. Eugene Miller Foundation, Carpinteria, CA)

D. Zea: ‘Composer Profile: Catherine Urner’, ILWC Journal (1994), Feb, 20 only

ELISE KIRK