All in a Chord R4

[Dave2002]

The All in a Chord programme - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087ps60 R4 today was really good.

It managed to get across in very few minutes a few significant points about chords - the inversion, the discordance of the 7th etc., the fact that Beethoven was really drawing attention to the "I know you don't like this - it's discordant - you may think I don't know this, but I do - but it's what I want you to know ... it's different ...", plus there was still about ten minutes spare to discuss how Napoleon was both enlightened and also a ruthless brute, with some sideways meanderings into the history of Austria.

Would that R3, which sets itself up as a music station, could be so informative about the actual nature of music itself!

[ardcarp]

Indeed, good old Radio 4 not treating its listeners like idiots!

The dissonance of the chord is resolved...though not in the same octave and not straight away. (Those chords that come after always remind me, fleetingly, of The Rite of Spring.) Beethoven wasn't the first to use waccy dissonance though. The opening of Mozart's SQ K465 springs to mind.

I gather the 'Tristan' chord is coming tomorrow. That resolves too...though in a sort of a 'chain reaction' of dissonant apoggiaturas. I wonder how they'll explain that? Better than I just did, I hope.