MusicTheoryWithAndre

Just yesterday (relative to when this was written), I had the immense pleasure and honor of hearing—live for the first time—the Mass in B minor. (Of course, I mean Bach’s Mass in B minor BWV 232, but to say “the Mass in B minor” without further qualification is to always  mean Bach’s, just as to say “the Ninth” without further qualification is to always mean Beethoven’s.) And as I sat in the front row watching, listening, and thinking, and the idea for this article came to mind. Basically, why did Bach break up 5 movements into almost 30 in the B minor Mass to create something of a grandeur and scale never seen until then?  The answer lies in the old story of the “doctrine of affections”—basically, the idea that artistic works should convey only one emotion, or they’ll get too chaotic because only one emotion can ever really come through.  This is especially evident in the Credo: “Credo in unum Deum” and “Patrem omnipotentem” have, among their “affects”, the fact that the...

 Let’s continue our discussion of form with a very popular nursery rhyme: Frere Jacques. Frere Jacques is (well, can be, and very often is) an example of what’s called a “round.” Rounds are the simplest form of imitation. They are a special case of another imitative form called a “canon,” which we’ll discuss later.  Listen first to a purely monophonic Frere Jacques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC6rvbxdywg&list=RDBC6rvbxdywg&start_radio=1 The idea is very clearly in 4:  1 2 3 1 | 1 2 3 1 | 3 4 5 ~ | 3 4 5 | etc.  (Here, I’m borrowing a notation from Laura from before I could read music; ~ turns the preceding number into a half note: quarter quarter quarter quarter | quarter quarter quarter quarter | quarter quarter half | quarter quarter half | etc.) So, what happens if you, very simply, start another 1 2 3 1… halfway through that four bar phrase I just put above, like  1 2 3 1 | 1 2 3 1 | 3 4 5 ~ | 3 4 5 ~ | etc           ...

 Two articles ago, we looked at functional harmony; the idea that certain chords that aren’t necessarily the tonic or dominant can “act” as if they were, and that certain chords are “pre-dominant,” that is, they exist to come before—to “prepare” the dominant. Last time, we looked at tonicization specifically looking at a harmonization of Jakob Hintze’s “Salzburg” hymn tune (used in English-language hymnody most often with “At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing”) by Bach, in his chorale BWV 262 “Alle Menschen müssen sterben.” Today, we’re going to look at something very closely related to both of those concepts, so be sure to read the articles mentioned above—in order—before continuing on with this one. We’re going to look at secondary harmony.  Go back to the Hintze score, and you’ll see, in clear-as-day D major, that, briefly, there is an E major chord. That, of course, doesn’t happen diatonically in D, since the ii chord is minor. E-G-B, of course, is different from E-G#-B. But b...

  Suppose you didn’t have the context of the rest of this hymn tune, and I gave you only the first two bars of the second line and asked you to identify which key it’s in. You would be totally correct if you analyzed the first 2 chords as I chords which move to a IV, which moves to a I while an F# from the IV hangs around a little later than it should, before actually moving back to IV, then to V, then to I, in the first two bars of that line. If that were your analysis—and it would be absolutely correct—then you’d essentially be arguing that the phrase is in A. After all, that’s the key in which I is A, IV is D, and V is E.  Allow me to put out what perhaps seems like a radical idea: even if I then show you the whole context, the analysis above remains absolutely correct. Each 2 bars is effectively one musical gesture here, and in the first 2 sets (that get repeated), everything is firmly grounded in D; this is, of course, nothing to write home about, since everthing else abo...

When this blog began, we introduced a quite rigid harmonic scheme rather soon. I was tonic, ii was supertonic, iii was submediant, and so on. V goes to I or vi. iii goes to vi goes to ii goes to V.

Now, I’m here to tell you that, in some cases, these rules may be bent slightly. Chords, of course, have a name, a number, and a quality, but, lying underneath that, they all have a function as well. 

 • I of course has “tonic function,” since it’s the tonic chord—but so does vi, since it’s the tonic of the relative minor • V of course has “dominant function,” since it’s the dominant chord, but so does viiº, since it’s exactly equivalent to the top 3 notes of a V7 • ii and IV have “pre-dominant function.”  • iii appears very rarely, and, depending on the circumstances, can have arguably either tonic or dominant function, exercising both of those much more weakly than the chords listed in the dedicated bullet points for those functions  What matters in functional harmony is...

One of the most important forms we have yet to discuss is also, at least in terms of its description, one of the most basic: theme and variations. That is, follow a 3 step process: 1. Play a thing 2. Change it somehow 3. Keep doing step 2 as long as you feel like it Theme and Variations can vary wildly in complexity. At one end of the spectrum we have the first work in the first of 10 Suzuki volumes: five (when I was growing up—but now six) purely rhythmic variations plus plain old nursery rhyme, sing-it-to-your-babies Twinkle Twinkle.  • Variation A gets students started thinking about detache versus staccato • Variation B introduces rests • Variation C works on bow distribution from tip to frog and vice versa • Variation D (since apparently relabeled “E”) works on right-hand flexibility  • Variation E (apparently actually “D” thanks to the relabeling) introduces triplets and/or counting in 6/8  • The theme is just straight, quarter-quarter-quarter-quar...

Cumulative music is a form that I rarely hear discussions about—except in one instance: “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. The premise of the song is that one’s true love gives them, from Christmas until the Epiphany: 1.        A partridge and a pear tree 2.        Yesterday’s gifts (another partridge) plus 2 turtle doves 3.        Yesterday's gifts (another partridge and 2 more doves) plus 3 French hens 4.        Yesterday’s gifts plus four (calling/colly—there is debate about this word) birds 5.        Yesterday’s gifts plus five golden rings 6.        Yesterday’s gifts plus six geese actively laying eggs 7.        Yesterday’s gifts plus seven swans actively swimming 8.        Yesterday’s gifts plus eight maids actively milking cows ...

The next form I want to talk about is the overture. This isn’t a “form” per se, but it’s an important-enough fixture in a whole host of different musical applications that it merits a discussion now. I want to start out with this recording of the Impresario Overture (the overture to “the Impresario”—a Mozart opera about opera; the singers, stage crew, opera house management, composer, public, and so on, and the vanity of the performers); I played the overture in high school, so I chose it (rather than the overture to something far more famous—Don Giovanni, the Magic Flute, etc.) both for that reason and to give it its due time in the spotlight alongside the heavyweights. MOZART : Impresario Overture K.486 (SLOVAK SINFORNIETTA ORCHESTRA) - YouTube Concerts in Mozart’s day were far more raucous affairs than they are today (a close comparison might be, for example, a modern Taylor Swift concert—full of in-venue eating and drinking, laughing, talking, and many other things that are tak...

Militaries have been around for quite some time, and with them, especially in the last few centuries, a distinctly military musical tradition has arisen. By far the most important form to have come out of that tradition is the march, written in   since we have two feet, and marching is a walking process that involves both of them in alternating sequence. Other than the near universality of the use of    for the reason stated above (  is used, but very rarely, and other time signatures are nearly unheard of), there are very few restrictions on what a march can be. It’s best that I show you a few examples of marches; as you listen, pay close attention to how duple they feel, and imagine yourself literally marching—or, better yet, get up and actually walk around, matching your pacing to the tempo. ·        Mozart Piano Sonata No 11 A major K 331 Barenboim - YouTube —this was written by Mozart to mimic the musical tradition of the Janiss...

If you look at scores of Baroque works in minor, you may notice something curious: they are sometimes notated as if they were in the dominant key of where they are actually written. (I first noticed this—and wanted to figure out the reason—years ago, when, as soon as I graduated from high school, I got a book with the scores for BWV 1001-1006 and BWV 1014-1019, and I started deeply studying some of these works I had never heard before (BWV 1014-1019, at the time) or (I’m now embarrassed to say) hadn’t given nearly as much listening attention as I should have (BWV 1001-1006). My first exposure to BWV 1001 was many years earlier at a studio recital; I think it was the first one that I remember during which Laura played something herself (she would go on to play with her son(s), brother, and the parents of fellow students, nearly every other recital thereafter), when she played the Adagio for us. Laura, I don’t know if you know this blog exists, but if you do and you’re seeing this, I’m m...

   The recording above is of a special (Baroque) type of concerto, and, in fact, was the first one I ever listened to as I was brought home as a newborn. The Adagio that begins around 5:38 in this recording has been with me literally 99.98% of of my life at this point, so it’s safe to say I know it quite well! What makes this (and so many other concerti by Arcangelo Corelli— the teacher of Antonio Vivaldi, by the way) a “concerto grosso” is the way in which it is written, made clearest by the visualization of the score. There are, in effect, two orchestras, not one. There is a small one “di concertino”, who are the group at the top of the score. Accompanying them— often passing the melody back and forth—is the larger group “di ripieno” (the “full” group) which most of the time also includes everyone in the smaller group. Listen to (and watch) this performance carefully several times, both with and without the score as a visual aid. The Christmas Concerto is particularly contr...

I’ve already written an article on opera explaining what it is and why it’s so important in history earlier in this series on form. And even before this series began, I explained what a Mass setting is. Today, then, I want to talk about something that’s a sort of hybrid between the two— a deeply spiritual, often Scripturally-based opera without costumes or scenery. This form is the oratorio. There are defined characters (Bach’s Easter Oratorio, for example, has Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less, Peter, and John— but no Jesus, Narrator, or Crowd), just like in an opera. Perhaps the most famous oratorio of them all is Handel’s Messiah, of great fame thanks to its “Hallelujah”. (Allow me an aside: I just discovered as I was writing this article that there is a German translation of “The Messiah”— as “Der Messias”—by none other than Mozart himself! Nothing changes except the language of the text.) There is no strict definition of what counts and doesn’t count as an oratorio...

Our next form is one which originated in the Baroque period but which has maintained preeminence for centuries to a degree almost unmatched by any other form: the concerto. A concerto, in simplest terms, is a work for (almost always one) soloists plus orchestra; almost always in 3 movements organized as fast-slow-fast. That basic concept has remained for centuries as a means of showing off the capabilities of both the person playing the instrument and of the instrument itself.   Concerti, especially in the Classical era and later, frequently have at least one “cadenza”. A cadenza is a time— almost always preceded by a cadential 6/4— for the soloist(s) to shine with minimal accompaniment by the orchestra. Usually, the cadenza is written making heavy use of the principal theme(s) of the movement in which it appears, giving those themes as flamboyant a treatment as possible. It used to be the case that cadenzas were also seen as opportunities for the players to showcase their mastery...

Johann Sebastian Bach died in 1750, and in 1759 (the same year Handel died—as mentioned before, because the same surgeon committed the same act of malpractice during the same operation 9 years after it killed Bach), Franz-Josef Haydn wrote his first of 104 symphonies. Five years later, Mozart (then age 8) followed with his first of 41. At that time, and still to this day, a symphony is a multi-movement (almost always 4) work for a large (the definition of “large” has definitely expanded over time) ensemble, almost always without singers (to differentiate it from something else like an opera, cantata, etc.—until 1824). Traditionally, the first of these movements is fast and in sonata form, which we discussed a few days ago. The second movement (usually) is slow. The third (usually) is some kind of dance. The fourth (and usually last) movement is (usually) even faster and grander than the first and may be in sonata form or some other form. The symphony is one of the forms that defi...

The form that defines the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque is the opera. The first operas were written right around the turn of the 16 th -17 th centuries (“Dafne” in 1598), and the earliest one still performed regularly followed soon after (“Orfeo” from 1607). Operas are, at their cores, plays where music, both played by instruments and sung by actors and actresses in costume, tells the story, rather than purely spoken word (like something by Shakespeare, for instance). It was born out of a desire in Florence to recreate the ancient Greek theatrical tradition, but to add an Italian musical character to it.   Over time, much has changed about opera (and what counts as one has greatly expanded). Most of history’s great composers (and some much-less-than-savory characters) are very famous for their operatic works: Handel, Verdi, Mozart, and Wagner, to name a few. Opera is important in history since it represents the turning point after which organized musi...

The next form I want to talk about is the Rondo. You may not know it by name, but I guarantee you’ve heard a Rondo, because I guarantee you’ve heard this piece at least once before: Rondo Alla Turca- Mozart - YouTube . (It's interesting far beyond its use as an exemplar of rondo form, so for sure it'll get its own article in the future explaining why.) What makes a rondo (sometimes “rondeau” as in French—like in this case, also quite famous: Henry Purcell: Rondeau from Abdelazer (Z570), Voices of Music; performed on original instruments 4K ) a rondo is the repetition of an idea surrounded by others. Usually, the form of a rondo is something like ABACABA; it’s both (usually) symmetrical (ABA on either side of a C: ABA C ABA ) and (usually) the A theme is the one that repeats the most often ( A B A C A B A —4 As, compared to only 2 Bs and 1 C.) But in the case of the Mozart, it’s not actually A that repeats over and over, but B, so it looks more like ABCBAB'D: the openi...

The next form we need to discuss, one that is still quite simple, is “sonata(-allegro)” form. A note about the name: it need not be used in a sonata (but very often is) and it need not be as fast as an Allegro (but it very often is). Recall from a few weeks ago that while introducing the Alberti bass, I pointed to the first movement of Mozart’s 16 th piano sonata (“for beginners”). That first movement will again be my reference, but I won’t transcribe it, since the whole thing would take too long. I do, however, strongly encourage you to go listen to the first movement, several times if need be—it’s about 3 minutes long, plus or minus a few seconds depending on the exact performance. The movement starts with the theme that I used in the Alberti bass article, which is basically Mozart’s way of saying “Hi! I’m here to play a piano sonata for you, and it’s in C major, enjoy!”—it’s very simple, it introduces the key and the character, it starts grounded in I, but very seamlessly moves...