ma mere l'oye

[mercia]

having just listened to the five-movement Mother Goose Suite on TTN I was wondering if a clever messageboarder could describe for me the penultimate chord in the fourth (les entretiens de ...........) movement in technical terms (the chord before the resolved major). I don't have a keyboard to hand and can't work it out, it sounds like a minor diminished something-or-other.

with thanks in anticipation

(perhaps there's an online score I can look at, there's a thought)

[Tony Halstead]

I'm definitely not 'clever' enough to be able to do a traditional 'harmonic analysis', but what we hear is 'bi-tonality': F major and F sharp major ( with an added 7th) sounding together.
Six bars before the end of that movement the double basses, the 2nd horn and the lowest of the divided cellos play a 'pedal' low F; the flute and piccolo play an A in octaves, in the treble range above middle C, reinforced by the harp's right hand.
So, there is a hollow, 'skeletal' F major.
However, F major is barely discernable on account of the quiet, sustained string chord, spread over 4 octaves. This chord is F sharp major with an added 7th ( the note E). The harp's left hand moves upward in crotchet beats, reinforcing the F sharp + E chord ( but notated enharmonically in G flat with an added F flat). This beautifully spine-tingling dissonance is of course resolved into a luminous, clear F major in the last 2 bars.

[subcontrabass]

having just listened to the five-movement Mother Goose Suite on TTN I was wondering if a clever messageboarder could describe for me the penultimate chord in the fourth (les entretiens de ...........) movement in technical terms (the chord before the resolved major). I don't have a keyboard to hand and can't work it out, it sounds like a minor diminished something-or-other.

with thanks in anticipation

(perhaps there's an online score I can look at, there's a thought)

You will find a score at http://216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/...ch._score_.pdf (the chord you are interested in is on page 45 - F sharp, A sharp, C sharp, E against F natural, A natural, resolving to F major triad).

[cloughie]

having just listened to the five-movement Mother Goose Suite on TTN I was wondering if a clever messageboarder could describe for me the penultimate chord in the fourth (les entretiens de ...........) movement in technical terms (the chord before the resolved major). I don't have a keyboard to hand and can't work it out, it sounds like a minor diminished something-or-other.

with thanks in anticipation

(perhaps there's an online score I can look at, there's a thought)

Was it numinous?

[mercia]

Was it numinous?

indeed, not to say luminous (as waldhorn rightly says)


many many many thanks to waldhorn and subcontra

with those brilliant descriptions I shall be able to copy it onto my manuscript paper

thank you very much for going to that trouble

[Serial_Apologist]

indeed, not to say luminous (as waldhorn rightly says)


many many many thanks to waldhorn and subcontra

with those brilliant descriptions I shall be able to copy it onto my manuscript paper

thank you very much for going to that trouble

It is indeed a numinous moment in music for me! In fact that movement is one of my favourite of all passages in Ravel's music. To me, the final combining of the two themes - that of the Beauty with the Beast - is one of the most imaginative and magical pieces of harmonisation in all music. I have often wondered if the Beast theme was originally devised by the composer as an alternative bass line to a re-harmonisation of the theme of the Beauty, and then extrapolated to become the melody - so ingeniously are they combined. Eric Satie would, I am sure, have been miffed at the explicit hommage to his own Gymnopedies represented by this movement.

S-A

[cloughie]

It is indeed a numinous moment in music for me! In fact that movement is one of my favourite of all passages in Ravel's music. To me, the final combining of the two themes - that of the Beauty with the Beast - is one of the most imaginative and magical pieces of harmonisation in all music. I have often wondered if the Beast theme was originally devised by the composer as an alternative bass line to a re-harmonisation of the theme of the Beauty, and then extrapolated to become the melody - so ingeniously are they combined. Eric Satie would, I am sure, have been miffed at the explicit hommage to his own Gymnopedies represented by this movement.

S-A

But then Ravel's orchestration produces so many moments. And he was Vaughan William's tutor - no suprises that he also produces those moments!

I wonder if Satie found the bit of La Mer at quarter to eleven Numinous?

[Serial_Apologist]

I wonder if Satie found the bit of La Mer at quarter to eleven Numinous?

Timeless, at any rate, no doubt, cloughie!

I know that story about Satie's expressed view on La Mer.