Modulations

[Serial_Apologist]

Our expectations always exist in some sort of context, and I am not desensitised to the expressive features of Schubert or Liszt simply because I am familiar with atonal music.

This brings up something I wrote on another thread in answer to some points from Richard Barrett about approaching the music of the past by way of the music of its future. Is it possible to approach something historical from a point of emotional engagement, as though hearing it for the first time? One may be hearing things in the music one has never heard before, not having encountered that particular piece, nevertheless while being familiar with the practices of its time with which one has become familiarised through wider listening. One may spot something that sounds or appears unusual for its, or any other time, and claim it as recognition of something that might be followed up in the course of time. But as to emotional identification with feeling and motivations from past eras when people thought and did differently, I would have my doubts. We can all know what joy feels like, or how it feels like to eg. lose one's beloved, or all one's belongings, or sense oncoming death; but the associations surrounding the feelings will be shaped by the conditions of the time. In answer to Richard () one can enjoin feelings about the course of events and the recorded feelings associated with them in diaries etc., as confirmatory of a specific perspective on a part of the past, but for me it would be difficult to translocate the kinds of emotional/intellectual responses I feel towards music that is closer to the times in which I am living into how I may appreciate music from say 300 years ago. I can only guess that the sudden modulatory "dip" that occurs a short distance into the slow movement of Mozart's 40th symphony must have produced a feeling of shock to its first-night audience, given the falling-down-a lift-shaft feeling it induces in me!

[Richard Barrett]

This brings up something I wrote on another thread in answer to some points from Richard Barrett about approaching the music of the past by way of the music of its future. Is it possible to approach something historical from a point of emotional engagement, as though hearing it for the first time?

I may have missed those comments on the other thread... if so, my apologies to the Apologist and I will have another look later on. In answer to your question here: yes, I think it is, and I think such should be the aim of performers approaching music of the past. Just as one understands and indeed feels say the French Revolution as a decisive break in history, even though most of its reforms have been assimilated into normal society in the intervening years (at least ostensibly!), so I think it's possible to feel a piece of music one is hearing as simultaneously situated and new. (Maybe that's very Romantic of me!)

[Joseph K]

Some of my favourite early "alerts" to the fascination of, for their time, unorthodox key changes, occur in well-known Russian works from the 19th century, which would go on to become "common practice" in Satie, and of course Debussy and Ravel, not to mention whole schools and hosts of 20th century composers who did not give up on tonal harmony, but used it in new ways, often "associatively" juxtaposed with older modal harmonic constructions, or, more accurately, neo-modal formulations, as beautifully explained by Anthony Payne in his radio description of Vaughan Williams's transition from modal ambiguity at the opening of the Fifth Symphony (where is the tonic?) to major diatonic resolution, in *both* senses, as the music modulates up a major third.

...

These matters of harmonic movement and tension-resolution are I think germane to the thread subject matter of modulation, which I hope I will be forgiven for introducing in the interest of broadening the discussion.

Thanks for this interesting post, I am sure Dave doesn't mind you broadening the discussion! When you mentioned major third modulation, I thought of Coltrane's Giant Steps and Liszt's Benediction... the latter of whose key scheme is F sharp - D - B flat - F sharp, and not only that, but this thirds-relation operates on a more local level too. I believe the Russians (and Wagner) owe many of their harmonic practices to Liszt.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for this interesting post, I am sure Dave doesn't mind you broadening the discussion! When you mentioned major third modulation, I thought of Coltrane's Giant Steps and Liszt's Benediction... the latter of whose key scheme is F sharp - D - B flat - F sharp, and not only that, but this thirds-relation operates on a more local level too. I believe the Russians (and Wagner) owe many of their harmonic practices to Liszt.

Yes I'm sure that's right: some have attributed the later widespread use of the Octatonic Scale to Rimsky-Korsakov as originator; others to Liszt. But I bet we could all find earlier instances of its use as a chromatic bridge between settled harmonic areas. In Rimsky, Borodin, Balakirev (to a lesser extent) and Mussorgsky one finds passages of "suspended tonality", using symmetrical modes of this and the whole-tone kind in ways that leave open which note is the root or tonic. John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner also made use of this to tonally ambiguous ends, applying one aspect of 20th century Euromodernism to fulfill jazz objectives.

[Dave2002]

Thanks for this interesting post, I am sure Dave doesn't mind you broadening the discussion! When you mentioned major third modulation, I thought of Coltrane's Giant Steps and Liszt's Benediction... the latter of whose key scheme is F sharp - D - B flat - F sharp, and not only that, but this thirds-relation operates on a more local level too. I believe the Russians (and Wagner) owe many of their harmonic practices to Liszt.

Interesting indeed, and it's good to have more views about this. Now I'll see if I can find that new box of Schoenberg string music, and listen to the fourth string quartet mentioned above. It'll take me a short while.

[Edgy 2]

My 'goose-bump' modulation is in Herbert Howells' song King David: an A flat (in E flat minor, the key the song is 'written' in) is held on the word 'rose'; it then becomes a G sharp and the ritornello he uses in the song returns in the key of E major, with the nightingale singing above.
Sheer magic.


Here's Sarah Connolly singing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN2Jz1vvlHY

And here's Janet Baker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g185MEZfriQ

Indeed.

Thanks for the technical explanation of one of the most beautiful of moments in English Song Pulcie,much appreciated.
With my basic,self taught, knowledge of music theory I had no idea.

[Richard Barrett]

In Rimsky, Borodin, Balakirev (to a lesser extent) and Mussorgsky one finds passages of "suspended tonality", using symmetrical modes of this and the whole-tone kind in ways that leave open which note is the root or tonic. John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner also made use of this to tonally ambiguous ends

... which I would imagine they actually got directly from Monk. I think the octotonic mode (otherwise known as Messiaen's 2nd mode) does originate with the Russians as an "exotic" sound with suggestive tonal ambiguity; by the same token I've always thought that Wagner's emphatic use of augmented triads has a timbral function as much as a modulatory one - did he derive that from Liszt? I don't know Liszt's work very well.

[Joseph K]

Off-hand I've only noticed instances of Liszt's harmony which imply the octatonic scale, largely by using diminished seventh chords with added notes. As for augmented triads, try the opening of the first movement of his Faust Symphony, which also happens to be a twelve-tone row!

[Richard Barrett]

Off-hand I've only noticed instances of Liszt's harmony which imply the octatonic scale, largely by using diminished seventh chords with added notes. As for augmented triads, try the opening of the first movement of his Faust Symphony, which also happens to be a twelve-tone row!

Thanks, I will.

[Dave2002]

... which I would imagine they actually got directly from Monk. I think the octotonic mode (otherwise known as Messiaen's 2nd mode) does originate with the Russians as an "exotic" sound with suggestive tonal ambiguity; by the same token I've always thought that Wagner's emphatic use of augmented triads has a timbral function as much as a modulatory one - did he derive that from Liszt? I don't know Liszt's work very well.

The article here gives some information about octotonic scales - though I wonder if the comment about the Petrushka fragment is strictly correct. It depends on whether you treat A sharp and B flat as the same in those scale systems I think - I'm not sure how strict these things are. For practical purposes they are often identical. With that proviso, all the notes are in the third example scale in that article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octato...metric%20scale.

Apart from some arguably very early uses, it does seem that Rimsky and other Russians used these in the nineteenth century.

I listened to Schoenberg quartets 2 and 4. Not very easy listening.

[Pulcinella]

The article here gives some information about octotonic scales - though I wonder if the comment about the Pulcinella fragment is strictly correct. It depends on whether you treat A sharp and B flat as the same in those scale systems I think - I'm not sure how strict these things are. For practical purposes they are often identical. With that proviso, all the notes are in the third example scale in that article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octato...metric%20scale.

Apart from some arguably very early uses, it does seem that Rimsky and other Russians used these in the nineteenth century.

I listened to Schoenberg quartets 2 and 4. Not very easy listening.

Do you mean Petrushka?

[Joseph K]

I listened to Schoenberg quartets 2 and 4. Not very easy listening.

The second is quite a remarkable piece, non?

[Richard Barrett]

I wonder if the comment about the Petrushka fragment is strictly correct

What do you mean?

[Dave2002]

What do you mean?

Just a quibble about whether A sharp and B flat are treated the same in octatonic scales, or if they are strictly different. Sometimes people seem to worry about that kind of thing.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just a quibble about whether A sharp and B flat are treated the same in octatonic scales, or if they are strictly different. Sometimes people seem to worry about that kind of thing.

As long as alternating tones and semitones are observed, does it matter?