MacDowell, To a Water Lily

Edward MacDowell, "To a Water Lily" from the Woodland Sketches, op. 51 (1895). Like "To a Wild Rose," this is a simple ternary design—and with a prominent role for a dominant ninth harmony in both A and B sections.

The main theme:

Below is the second part of the B section, as in "To a Wild Rose" an expansion of the dominant, though this time with the pedal bass tone literally sounded. In the midst of this, the V9 chord appears here and there, but the beginning and ending sonorities are the dominant seventh (V7).

In the cadence, the dominant ninth harmony is given considerable attention -- boxed -- and functions as the cadential dominant -- see bar 3.

MacDowell, To a Wild Rose

Edward MacDowell, "To a Wild Rose" from the Woodland Sketches, op. 51 (1895). I have published an essay, with many details about this piece, on the Texas Scholarworks platform: link.

One aspect of "simplicity" in the main theme is the blocking of the chordal accompaniment, which adds a sort of untutored—I am tempted to say "Grandma Moses"—quality to the whole. The system below the theme score reduces the voiceleading to its textbook or classroom version, and there one can see more easily the V9 harmonies. An interesting point about bar 4: a plausible and rare second inversion of the dominant ninth chord (I write about inversions of the "extended" chords in the Gallery essay). In the cadence, we are obliged to imagine the E4 to which the ninth F#4 would resolve, but it's a very easy one in this context.

The design of "To a Wild Rose" is a simple ternary form; the relatively brief B-section is shown below.

Here again a voiceleading reduction is useful, including the addition of an obvious implied dominant pedal point (one is grateful to MacDowell's artistic sense not to ask for this literally).

In the ending, both V9/V and the cadential V9 are no longer present. Instead, we have the more traditional viiø7/V (understood by theorists of the time as the V9 without its root—a bizarre idea if we think about it now, but it made sense at the time, as everyone was attempting to adjust the system of figured bass to the new Ramellian (that's Rameau's) scheme of fundamental bass and three functions, tonic, dominant, and subdominant). Here, MacDowell makes out of the circled chord a wonderfully expressive highpoint, pianissimo.

Schubert again

Here are several more examples of dominant ninth harmonies in Schubert, mostly from Laendler but also one from the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin.

D734n5:

D790n12:

D366n17:

D734n16:

D783n2:

Die schöne Müllerin, n12 "Pause":

Johann Strauss, jr. before 1850

Here are two examples from the early music of Johann Strauss, jr. The two figures are almost identical: both are direct resolutions of the dominant ninth chord (category 2.3), in both the ninth is reached only on the third beat of the bar, and the resolution is to ^6, which then relaxes back into ^5 at the end of the bar.

Die junge Wiener, op7 n3, opening of the second strain.

Jugendträume, op12 n1, opening of the second strain.

Opus 12 also contains two other interesting examples. In the first strain of n1, ^6 is given prominent place as an appoggiatura over the tonic--circled in bar 3. In the cadence, a similar appoggiatura this time produces an expanded V9 that resolves its ninth late--circled in bars 13-14. This is my category 1.3.

In n2, ^6 is a simple neighbor note at first (bar 1), then appears on a strong beat and resolves within the dominant (bar 5), but then reappears and resolves directly (bars 6-7). The unfoldings D5-G4 and C5-F4 show how one can hear the ninth maintained across all of bars 5-6 and resolved to C5 in bar 7.

Simon Sechter

Simon Sechter, organist, composer, teacher, and music theorist in Vienna (link), is best known now for his harmony treatise, Die Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition (3 vols., 1853: link to Internet Archive copy). Earlier, he published a Praktische Generalbass-Schule, Op.49 (1830; link to copy on IMSLP).

The treatise on figured bass is very traditional. Its focus is on the inventory of figures, how to recognize and organize them in the mind, and to learn to play the associated chords. As such, the concern with ninths is with that figure, not any specific inventory of harmonies. For instance, his first example of the "Nonaccord" is for a 9-8 suspension of a simple tonic triad--circled below.

The next is for 9-8 above seventh chords of different qualities. The one circled is a minor minor seventh chord, ii7 in C major. The dominant with major ninth appears in bars 2 and 5 (not circled).

And here is a double suspension, 9-8 with 4-3, the underlying chord being a D minor triad. Notice that Sechter throws in a dominant ninth in the cadence, further evidence that he is concerned with the figure 9, not specific chord groups.

The final example shifts away from suspensions to passing tones/chords.

For the most part, the pedagogy of theory and composition throughout the nineteenth century recognized ninth chords as vertical entities but assigned them to suspension or passing chord figures. Suspensions, to be sure, were an important part of the evolution of the independent dominant ninth harmony, but so were the varieties of incomplete neighbors (especially—but not exclusively—appoggiaturas).