Today most scholars agree that Rameau was the founder of modern harmonic theory. As we have seen in the previous chapter, Rameau attempted to synthesize in his many writings a multiplicity of ideas – both old and new, speculative and practical – into a unified theory of tonal harmony grounded upon a single underlying principle, the corps sonore (see Chapter 24, pp. 759–71). If he did not succeed in creating a truly systematic and stable theory of harmony owing to his many differing and often contradictory theoretical arguments and intellectual borrowings, he nonetheless bequeathed to the nineteenth century a number of compelling and richly suggestive ideas that would inspire theorists in their own efforts. In this chapter, we will look at the evolution of harmonic theory in the nineteenth century. This is of course a vast and complex topic. Given the profound changes in harmonic language between 1800 and 1900 – a period covering the end of Viennese Classicism and closing with Schoenberg’s first tentative steps beyond the tonal system – it is not surprising that theorists expended extraordinary energy and efforts in their attempts to rationalize this shifting practice. As it is impossible here to describe all of these efforts in detail, we will limit our scope to the development of Austro-German harmonic theory, a tradition which arguably encompasses some of the most innovative and influential writings on this topic for the entire century. Within this tradition, three individual trajectories can be traced back by differing routes to Rameau’s own theory: scale-degree ( Stufen ) theory, fundamental-bass theory, and function theory.

Nineteenth-century harmonic theory: the Austro-German legacy

Symbolism and Catholicism in French Music at the Time of the Separation of Church and State (1888-1925)

Introduction 1. A passing of worlds: Gurrelieder as Schoenberg's reluctant farewell to the nineteenth century 2. Dialectical opposition in Schoenberg's music and thought 3. Dramatic conflict in Pelleas und Melisande 4. Motive and memory in Schoenberg's First String Quartet 5. Uncanny expressions of time in the music of Arnold Schoenberg 6. The tone row as the source of dramatic conflict in Moses und Aron 7. The String Trio: metaleptic Schoenberg Notes Bibliography Indexes.

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Schoenberg's musical imagination

This study offers an alternative to the diatonic interaction model to explain Bartok9s interest in the octatonic collection. The special ability of the octatonic collection to be partitioned into alternative sets of transpositionally related subsets is revealed through an abstract study. The exploitation of this potential through the interaction of the subsets is demonstrated in two compositions from the Mikrokosmos and in the first movement of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.

Bartók's Octatonic Strategies: A Motivic Approach

Epistemologies of music theory

There is a new critical foreword by Walter Frisch, H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia University, that expands this centennial edition. Frisch puts Schoenberg's masterpiece into historical and ideological context, delineating the connections between music, theory, art, science, and architecture in turn-of-the century Austro-German culture.

Theory of Harmony

This new book on Debussy's music comprises analytical studies of individual works not widely examined previously, including the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, La Damoiselle Clue, Nuages, and Gigues among them. A discussion of the tonal structure of the first movement of La mer finds new relevance to the overused term "symphonic" in relation to Debussy's position in the history of French orchestral music. An extensive essay documents Debussy's "aural images" in his propensity for recycling his own musical ideas and quoting the music of other composers. A final lighthearted chapter, "Debussy and Ravel: How to Tell Them Apart," systematically addresses this century-old critics' conundrum.

Debussy and the Veil of Tonality: Essays on His Music

Everyone who knows Debussy's music recognises a distinctive ‘Debussy sound’ that is not a single quality but many; the sound of Debussy's style in most of his works is harmony, instrumentation, texture, timbre, all to a greater or lesser extent. Even such wide-ranging elements as melody, rhythm, and microform affect Debussy's quality of sound. The composer Jean Barraque, an astute analyst, spoke of Debussy's habit of repeating phrases and phrase fragments in immediate succession as ‘the sole weakness that one might find in Debussy's scores’, without suggesting that this kind of repetition is a fundamental aspect of Debussy's sense of form; paired repetition, like breathing (which as a marker of time it somewhat resembles), is a trait of many composers from Vivaldi to Mozart to Rossini to Debussy; but in combination with others that we think of as characteristically sonorous, it is a trait that makes Debussy's style instantly recognisable even on first hearing. Here we will discuss the sonorous rather than the temporal aspects of Debussy's music, focusing particularly on orchestral and piano style, texture, and colour, recognising that these aspects often penetrate each other as much as they are components of overall form. Debussy's earliest instrumental style Debussy's earliest piano pieces and songs include a variety of different piano styles and textures, but nothing that is markedly different from those of his French contemporaries or from his Parisian predecessor Chopin, for whose music he always had a special understanding and regard. Accompanimental textures in Debussy's songs of his Conservatoire years are more economical than in Faure's of the same time, and for that reason they are often more effective. The Piano Trio of 1880, which Debussy did not publish, is the first of his works in which we can glimpse an instrumental style in addition to that already developing for the piano, but even though the ensemble always works well, again there is no notably original pianism.

The Debussy sound: colour, texture, gesture

An outstanding characteristic of 19th century Russian nationalist music is its common language of modal harmony. Harmonic associations of submediant and tonic functions, frequently in relation to melodic use of pentatonic and natural minor scales, became particularly prominent in the works of Tchaikovsky and the "Five." An outstanding nationalist man­ nerism, identified here as the "Russian sixth," began in Glinka's operas, continued in Dargomyzhsky's works, evolved in full strength in numerous examples by Tchaikovsky and the "Five," abated somewhat in the genera­ tion of Russian composers that followed them, and died out by the turn of the twentieth century, at about the same time that it reappears in works of non-Russian composers such as Debussy and Sibelius. 20 I have a vivid memory of hearing a lush and noisy orchestral piece, with unmistakable Russian sixths prominently featured, on the radio. Not recognizing tl1e work, I guessed it might be a film score by some Soviet realist composer whom I didn't know. It turned out to be the Russian Suite by Arnold Bax. (C) 1995 by the Trustees of Columbia University, used with permission.

Mark DeVoto

Papers

Theory of Harmony

Debussy and the Veil of Tonality: Essays on His Music

The Debussy sound: colour, texture, gesture

The Russian Submediant in the Nineteenth Century

Some Notes on the Unknown Altenberg Lieder