103: A Therese and the Italian Sixth

 Today, we’ll cover the next “nationality” of sixth chord—not to be confused with a very similarly-named chord which will be getting its own article very soon—the Italian Sixth. The Italian sixth is, like the French sixth (and the upcoming German sixth) formed completely formulaically, relative to the root.

Just like we walked through the formula yesterday, let’s do the same now. Something peculiar happens in the Italian sixth that doesn’t happen in the French and won’t in the German either: the doubling of one of the pitches so that there are only 3 unique notes, not 4, in the chord. Begin somewhere with a bass note. Then, for both the tenor and the alto, write pitches a major third above that bass. This doubled note is the chord’s root. Finally, in the soprano voice, write a note a tritone above the alto voice. You have now successfully written the Italian sixth.

Resolving an Italian sixth—to V—is easy, and everything happens by step: the bass falls by a half step, the tenor (root) falls by a half step, the alto (root) rises by a whole step, and the soprano rises by a half step. Be careful, however, to not confuse the Italian sixth’s function. Though enharmonically equivalent to a dominant seventh missing its fifth degree, the Italian sixth, since it is both inverted and resolves in such a way that the bass falls a half step to the root of a dominant chord, does not have dominant function. Instead, precisely because of those reasons (how and to where it resolves), the chord has pre-dominant function. This is a common trap with any of the “nationalities” of sixth chords: they look enharmonically equivalent to something else, but there’s a deeper reason why you shouldn’t/can’t respell the chord with those equivalencies and treat the sixth chord as if it were still the same after the transformation.

My favorite easy-to-spot example of this chord is in the second movement of Beethoven’s 24th Piano Sonata. (Unlike, for example the A minor bagatelle popularly called “Fur Elise”—we have no definitive proof of her identity, and there are 3 generally accepted candidates—we know exactly for whom A Therese was written: a countess whose name was Therese who was one of Beethoven’s; if you’ll indulge some more speculation, it’s possible though not certain that this Therese, not her sister Josephine to whom the letter was addressed, was the actual intended subject of the “Immortal Beloved” letter that inspired the move of the same name.) Beethoven’s large-scale piano works are monumentally great, so in due time, I’ll start a series where we go through each sonata and concerto. 

For now, let me just say this: 1) Yes, unlike the typical configuration, A Therese has only 2 movements, 2) You’re not the victim of mind-games if you hear Rule Brittania in A Therese’s second movement; that’s entirely deliberate, and 3) The very first chord in the second movement—resolving just as I said it would—is the Italian sixth we care about. 


Here are some great recordings of A Therese:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfiiRZvTVeU&list=RDCfiiRZvTVeU&start_radio=1

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVBYpaeI4RM&list=RDTVBYpaeI4RM&start_radio=1

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kyhEoFUmig&list=RD9kyhEoFUmig&start_radio=1

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC0cx0S2zcQ&list=RDfC0cx0S2zcQ&start_radio=1


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