Musical questions and answers thread

[Pulcinella]

(And, whilst I don't know the work very well, I suspect that both Vlad and White are probably missing Igor's characteristic use of the Octotonic scale anyway!)

Thanks (I think!).
But what's an octotonic scale when it's at home?
(Don't bother answering; I'll Google. Must be like pentatonic but longer!)

PS: Also known as octatonic, I see.

[Pabmusic]

Nice answer, Ferney.

[Richard Barrett]

PS: Also known as octatonic, I see.

& otherwise known (by Messiaen at least) as mode 2 of limited transposition, so-called because it takes fewer than 12 semitonal transpositions of them to return to the original mode (3 in the case of mode 2; 2 in the case of mode 1, otherwise known as the whole-tone scale). As many composers from Debussy to Thelonious Monk have discovered, this gives the modes of limited transposition a certain ambiguity relative to tonality, so that a given mode can be heard as relating alternately or even simultaneously to two or more otherwise unrelated keys. I think fg would probably agree with me that this is a simpler and preferable way to look at Stravinsky's use of modes and harmony than trying (unsuccessfully it seems!) to see it as involving combinations and/or clashes between tonalities.

As for "rit.", I have to admit guilt in using it when I really mean "rall.", but in almost 40 years of composing I've only used this device a couple of times, finding it, unless applied in some systematic kind of way, much too "romantic" a thing to do...

[Pulcinella]

& otherwise known (by Messiaen at least) as mode 2 of limited transposition, so-called because it takes fewer than 12 semitonal transpositions of them to return to the original mode (3 in the case of mode 2; 2 in the case of mode 1, otherwise known as the whole-tone scale). As many composers from Debussy to Thelonious Monk have discovered, this gives the modes of limited transposition a certain ambiguity relative to tonality, so that a given mode can be heard as relating alternately or even simultaneously to two or more otherwise unrelated keys. I think fg would probably agree with me that this is a simpler and preferable way to look at Stravinsky's use of modes and harmony than trying (unsuccessfully it seems!) to see it as involving combinations and/or clashes between tonalities.

I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the music.

[Pabmusic]

& otherwise known (by Messiaen at least) as [B]... Rit. ... much too "romantic" a thing to do...

In my experience a sudden slowing down when things are much too romantic is never popular.



[sorry ... .]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think I'll just sit back and enjoy the music.

AAKA - "Alternating tone and semitone scale" - T S T S T S T S

So - C D Eb F Gb Ab A B C

(or also S T S T S T S T = B C D Eb F F# G# A B)

Given the correct spelling it is, as Richard Barrett suggests, a much less cumbersome way of hearing how the Music functions than the older ideas of Bitonality and Polytonality. The characteristic "Stravinsky sound" (even in his twelve-note Serial works) owes much to his use of the scale. (His teacher Rimsky-Korsakoff also used it to denote "magic"/supernatural realms - but often simply reduced to strings of ascending and descending scales and arpeggios based on it.)

[Richard Barrett]

a much less cumbersome way of hearing how the Music functions than the older ideas of Bitonality and Polytonality.

I've never really been convinced by the idea of bitonality - it may be the way some music was conceived and written, but actually hearing it in action is a different matter (unless the music is radically separated into independent planes in other ways than just harmonically, which Stravinsky except in a few instances like Le Sacre and Les Noces wasn't really interested in doing). Once two or more disparate tonal harmonies are combined, what you have is a third harmony with its own sound.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Once two or more disparate tonal harmonies are combined, what you have is a third harmony with its own sound.

[EdgeleyRob]

3 questions if I may.

What do the instructions in the harp part mean ? (eg re♭etc)
Why are there rests in brackets in the quartet part ? (I've possibly asked this before and forgotten)
What's the significance of a slur under a single note ? (e.g. In the strings 2nd bar)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What do the instructions in the harp part mean ? (eg re♭etc)

Harp strings have seven strings to the octave - the pedals move the pitches up or down to get the sharps and flats. French printed Music from this period use solfege (doh, re, mi, fa etc) rather than C D E F etc. C is "doh", so "re" is D, and "re b" is Db. (sol b = Gb, mi b = Eb etc etc. ) These pitch changes will stay until the composer indicates otherwise ("muta mi b in mi" sort-of thing, "change Eb to E")

Why are there rests in brackets in the quartet part ? (I've possibly asked this before and forgotten)
What's the significance of a slur under a single note ? (e.g. In the strings 2nd bar)

It looks here as if the composer wants the string players to let the note carry on sounding after they've taken their bows off the string ready to attack the next note. Usually, the player would make sure that the note finished (this is called "damping") at the end of bar two - here they're supposed to let the string continue to vibrate into the bracketed rest. It's a different sound both from continuing to bow the note in the crotchet rest in bar 3, and from damping the note at the end of bar 2 - and ensures that the tenuto notes in bar 3 get their proper accent/"weight".

[Pabmusic]

Great, Ferney. Sometimes the composer will just write the names of any notes to be changed inbetween the harp staves, sometimes you even find diagrams. But usually it's all left to the harpist to prepare in advance (generally composers are no better doing it themselves than they are with tuning changes for the timpani). Of course it means that passages sometimes occur where the harp simply can't play what is written, because there's no time for the pedalling - so the player has to compromise in some way. One neat trick in 'special' glissandos where only certain notes of the scale are required is to use the pedals: if the composer wants just C, D, E, G, and A to sound, then the F will be flattened (sounding E) and the B sharpened (sounding C).

[EdgeleyRob]

Brilliant,thanks ferney and Pabs.

[Pulcinella]

Once two or more disparate tonal harmonies are combined, what you have is a third harmony with its own sound.

In talking about the reorchestration in 1952 to create the Concertino for 12 instruments, White says:

In the programme note for the first performance of the Concertino in its new guise, Stravinsky wrote: 'My present intentions towards my earlier work have led me to re-bar it rather extensively to clarify some of the harmony, and to punctuate and phrase it more clearly.' [My emphasis]

Thanks, Richard and ferney, for taking the time to write your comments/explanations.
IMHO (and that of others, I'm sure) this is one of the best threads on the forum.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks to the marvel that is "YouTube with Videos", I have seen the score of the Concertino, and ... Vlad's not blustering; he's absolutely correct. The Violin and 'cello both play a rising C major scale, whilst the viola plays a Phrygian mode scale starting on C#. (C# D# E F# G# A# B C#). White's suggestion of "B major" isn't "wrong", but he neglects to point out that the part doesn't begin (or end) on B. Stravinsky has chosen two scales that have two notes in common - E and B, which occur simultaneously in the "three" parts. Suggesting C major and B major, as White does, implies (to me at least) that all notes will be a semitone apart - something Milhaud or Lourie might have done, perhaps, but Igor has a much finer ear for avoiding the obvious. (The "cadenza" section in the middle of the work centres around an E major triad sonority - I'd say "picking up" the sonorous potential of the E/B co-incidence of the opening scales; but I don't know the work nearly well enough to suggest further relationships.)

[Richard Barrett]

Harps have seven strings to the octave - the pedals move the pitches up or down to get the sharps and flats.

I don't have much to add to what you and Pabs have written except to say that there are, for no particularly good reason it seems to me, three strings on the harp, namely the lowest C and D and the highest G, which are not connected to the pedal mechanism and therefore can't be altered while playing (although of course they can be tuned sharp or flat in advance if required). This is another thing that many composers don't know!

Following on from the discussion of the octotonic scale, this time in connection with Messiaen, the heptatonic aspect of the harp is probably one reason why it doesn't appear a single time in any of his published compositions. While composers of non-tonal music have to be careful in writing harp parts that they know all the pitches they're writing are actually available at that moment, what's much more difficult to get a handle on is exactly when the pedal changes should take place. One might think that by spacing them out in time so that the player isn't ever tapdancing, making sure they don't happen when one of the strings being changed is actually resonating (unless that's what's required - the "pedal-glissando" is an essential part of the harp's extended articulational repertoire), and ensuring that if two changed do need to happen at the same time they either involve both feet (B, C and D are on the left, E, F, G and A on the right) or one foot moving two adjacent pedals between the same two settings, that would be the best solution, but somehow harpists always have better ones. In my most recent piece for orchestra, the pedal changes for the two harpists were all in my sketches but I left them out of the final score and parts, which the players were happy with - they prefer to write the changes in themselves.

While I'm here: one solution to the question of how to use a basically diatonic instrument in non-tonal music would be to base the harmony of a composition on a systematic use of the pedals, for example: first decide on three "tonalities" which together use all 21 pedal combinations (each of seven pedals having three positions), for example

E F Gb A# B C D#
Eb Fb G Ab B# C# D
E# F# G# A Bb Cb Db

and then a system of "modulations" which transform one of these into the next in seven steps, by changing one pedal at a time, so you end up with a cycle of 21 "tonalities", none of which (like the basic three above) correspond to traditional ones, but which are related together in a way that's intimately connected with the mechanics of the instrument and so is completely idiomatic to it in a way that a more abstract conception of chromatic harmony would probably not be, while also generating a harmonic substrate on which all kinds of material might evolve. Sorry, getting a bit carried away there...