One of the first things I attempted was to label chords. Things went smoothly. That is until I hit the fourth and fifth measures of the piece.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
No. 1 C major
Before I began my work on the first piece in Chopin's collection of preludes, the worry of making mistakes, or only seeing surface details came to mind. When I first looked at the score, my initial goal was to find something significant in the music. When nothing jumped out, I decided to take a step back, and simply break down what I could (after all, this is a LEARNING experience. I should expect to make mistakes and miss things), and that is when I started making actual discoveries. So, let us begin our tour of the Chopin preludes.
One of the first things I attempted was to label chords. Things went smoothly. That is until I hit the fourth and fifth measures of the piece.
It was as this point that I felt the need to segment parts off. The first set of triplet sixteenth notes would make up one section, the last sixteenth note, and then the rest would be it's own.
Now, the reason I segmented the green is because when I began labeling chords, I initially thought that the last note was something extra, a non-harmonic tone. But, as I looked at what led to these "non-harmonic tones" I saw that the two notes were always the same, and approached the same. Almost as if parallel octaves.
Without failure, the sets of notes mimic each other, up until the last 6 measures, where the pattern changes. Now, what exactly does the mean for interpreting the harmonies? Well, these act as points of resolution, and through repetition, create an expectation. So, now chords are going to be interpreted retroactively.
So, if we interpret as the Gs not going to a non-harmonic tone, but rather the C major chord moving to the relative, A minor, we have a new harmonic motion happening above the bass line. Now, if we understand that the bass line as being independent from the rest of the piece, we are now have an explanation for measures such as this...
where we have an F+ leading to D minor over top of F major. This separation of harmonies has led to interesting cadences in the music, such as where in the bass line, we have a cadential 6/4 going to a V7, followed by a tonic chord pedal with the occasional F in the line to color things up, and the last few measures creating a plagal cadence with the upper voice rocking back and forth between F major, and C major.
One of the first things I attempted was to label chords. Things went smoothly. That is until I hit the fourth and fifth measures of the piece.
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Nice first entry, Jon! Particularly an excellent job with the formatting and use of cleanly-marked musical examples. Three questions I have remaining for you about this piece:
ReplyDelete1. I'm not sure I would describe the bass line as "being independent from the rest of the piece"; Chopin is firmly enough in the common practice, particularly through his ties to the Italian partimenti tradition, that the bass line for me is the starting point when I analyze Chopin. Often rather than approaching his music from a chord labeling perspective, I'll start with a functional bass analysis and write in some figured bass numbers, then add chord labels that match. Give it a try and see what it tells you about harmonic function, cadences, and phrasing/musical line in this piece!
2. You managed to spot the most interesting and salient feature of this piece: that right hand line (doubled at the octave more so than parallel octaves) that moves on the very last note of each measure (except, as you pointed out, that the octave doubling has disappeared in the last six measures--note however that the motion still happens on those last notes of the measure). I would like to hear a little more about the melodic/harmonic implications of this little motivic gesture--is it always a consonance that moves to a dissonance (or weaker consonance), is it always a dissonance that resolves at the end of the measure, or what? How does the treatment of this motive affect the meaning of this piece?
3. How would you phrase this piece if you were playing it? Where would the music ebb and flow, speed up and slow down, crescendo and decrescendo, etc.? Where are the musical climaxes of this piece, and which of these is the main climax?
Overall, a great start! Addressing my above three questions should complete the picture for you.
You might find the following perspective generally useful as you work through your analyses this summer: http://musingtheory.blogspot.com/2014/06/analysis-and-performance.html
ReplyDelete1. I tried doing functional bass. I didn't find anything really out of the ordinary. Do 5/3 Ti 6/5 Do 5/3 Mi 6/3 Fa 5/3 Fi 6/5 Sol 5/3 La 6/3, etc. The only two chords that stood out were a 6/4 built on Sol that resolved to a 6/3 on La, and was not part of any passing motion.
ReplyDelete2. I'll be honest: I have no clue. Sometimes the motive changes the chord from a 5/3 to a 6/3, sometimes it resolves a 7 to an 8, or even a 7 to a 6.
3. I would phrase the climax of the piece as being three and four measures before the cadential 6/4, because that's where the maximum amount of dissonance occurs right before resolving to a Mi 6/3.
Let's see if we can get you moving in the right path in examining the "melodic" content of this piece: In m.1, the motive moves from a stable P5 to a less stable (but still consonant) M6. In m.2, the motive moves from a m6 to a dissonant m7. In m.3, the motivic line is identical to m.1, and in all of these measures the pitches involved have been G-A; the first and third statement feature a less stable but still consonant A, while in the second measure the A is dissonant. We become accustomed to hearing the last note of the motivic figure as an expressive neighbor figure, hanging suspended briefly before resolving back to the G.
ReplyDeleteIn m.4, however, the motive is subverted: the notes involved, B-C, form a P5-m6 against the bass, but the P5 is now the dissonant major seventh of the chord, resolving up to the root. Not only does this reverse the consonant-dissonant pattern of the motive, but linking back to m.3 the B is recognized as an accented passing tone, AND the A in m.3 is retroactively recognized as another passing tone, and not the neighbor tone that we had been conditioned by the first two measures to expect. The expressivity of the motive figure is heightened in m.5, where it is now turned upside down and the first note is now an apoggiatura, M7-M6.
I'll let you continue with the motivic discussion of the rest of the piece now that I have you started. Make sure you discuss the difference between the ascending form of the motive, the descending form of the motive, and how the resulting arches help shape and create phrases in the music.
One more question pertaining to phrases and climactic moments: how many cadences would you say there are in this piece? Where are they, and what types of cadences are they (half, perfect authentic, etc.)?
Okay, I think I'm starting to get it. I'll definitely have to come back to this piece with this information in mind. As for the cadences, I hear three. A half cadence at measure 8, a half cadence at measure 24, and a plagal extension leading to a full cadence in the last bar.
ReplyDeleteI think if you listen for the melodic pattern mi-re-do at the end, you'll find the final cadential resolution occurs a bit sooner than the last bar, with the plagal extension stretching it out after the fact (as plagal extensions most often do).
ReplyDelete