Harmonic Experience: Tonal Harmony from Its Natural Origins to Its Modern Expression by W. A. Mathieu

Author:W. A. Mathieu
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Music
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 1997-08-01T03:00:00+00:00

Example 30.18

Bar 1 is in C Major but “borrows” the Ab from the parallel Minor. Bar 2 begins unambiguously on an F-minor triad, and at the third beat the music could easily return to C; the G of the soprano, for instance, is heard as the major seventh above Ab; likewise, the D is heard as Pythagorean. But all of the tones of bar 2 could have another meaning as well, and by beat 4 that possibility is foremost, thanks to the E-major triad, which immediately is identified as the V of A Minor. The soprano G, as it turns out, was a diminished octave above the bass G#, the interval created by a chromatic major/minor pair of sevenths: G#/Gn in A Minor; likewise, the Pythagorean D becomes its darker Didymic sibling, the subdominant of A. The A-Minor triad of bar 3 is perceived only momentarily as a tonic chord; it quickly functions as part of a vi–IV–V cadence in C Major. The note on which the diesis occurs here is the G# in the bass in bar 2; it supports the upper voices as the harmony flees northward. What happens in your ear during the last half of that bar?

Example 30.19 places the diesis tone in the soprano and offers a more definite modulation to A Minor.

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