The Chess Chronicles Part 9: Commie Newspapers and Motifs

"Commie Newspapers" is the first song where "motifs" appear.  Wikipedia defines motifs like this:

In music, a "motif" is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance or is characteristic of a composition ... It is commonly regarded as the shortest subdivision of a theme or phrase that still maintains its identity as a musical idea. 

Anton Webern defined it as, "The smallest independent particle in a musical idea, which are recognizable through their repetition".

One of the most recognizable motifs is the "Curse Motif", also known as the Mysterioso Pizzicato.  It first appeared in the early 20th century, and was most commonly used by the accompanist in silent films:

I wanted the brief dialogue between Freddie and the chess computer to be in the clear, so we started at m.10 after "Bishop to A5, check".  We repeated m.10-13, and then Florence comes in at m.10 on the second time:

This little seven note motif isn't seen again until act 2, where it shows up several times, particularly in scenes where Florence and Anatoly are together.  Here's an example from "One More Opponent":

It's also played by Keyboard 2 without vocals.  Another example from "One More Opponent":

In the second act, the motif generally appears when Florence and Anatoly are together.  This suggests that it's a possible "love theme".  In "Commie Newspapers", Florence declares that she loves Freddie; is it possible that this is what Andersson/Ulvaeus intended?

Another example of this from musical theater is from Into The Woods.  There's a motif introduced in the first act, which then recurs later on in the second act as the melody line for multiple songs.  "I Guess This Is Goodbye" is the song where Jack has to say farewell to his beloved Milky White, and the motif is in ms.3-4:

This motif returns in "Stay With Me", and "You Are Not Alone", both in the second act.  

In both Chess and Into The Woods, the motif introduced in the first act returns multiple times in the second act.  However, in "Commie Newspapers", this happens more than once.  From ms.18-21:

This motif reappears in "One More Opponent", in ms.13-14; this example also shows the first motif in ms.15-17:

The third and last motif is in ms.27-31:

This motif appears later in "One Night In Bangkok", ms.89-93:

By the way, the tennis player Freddie was referring to is John McEnroe.  The two of them definitely had some things in common -- brash, young players at the top of their game, willing to defy authority.

If I ever got the chance to interview Andersson/Ulvaeus, I'd definitely ask them about "Commie Newspapers", and have them explain to me why they previewed these three motifs inside of a single song.  Are they just Easter eggs, placed there as a clever musical joke?  Or are there dramatic reasons for it?

Comments are welcome on this, and certainly from those who have music directed Chess.