Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Kalkbrenner

In 1849, Friedrich Kalkbrenner published a practical instructional manual for pianists that combines the typical sequence in chord presentation with advice and examples for preluding, a nearly ubiquitous practice of improvising in the key of the composition before one performed in salon, recital, or even domestic music-making. It was only after the first World War that the practice largely died out.

Of the dominant ninth, he writes
This chord should be placed among the suspension chords, along with the eleventh and thirteenth, because it cannot be properly inverted, but because of its importance among the dissonant harmonies and the ingenious manner in which it is used, being presented in various contexts, we give it a separate chapter here. The ninth chord is nothing other than a dominant seventh chord to which a third has been added. (p. 26; my translation)
Oddly, however, Kalkbrenner's first example highlights a sequence of 9-8 suspensions, only reaching V9 at the end (boxed). Then he switches to the other extreme, with a sequence of dominant ninth chords that is very similar to one we saw in Dehn's Harmonielehre (1840).


And when he provides examples of preludes incorporating the ninth, the model (and of course the variants that follow) lack the V9 altogether:


Here are the first two variations:

The dominant ninth chord also plays no role in the nineteen exercises for preluding or the nine written-out preludes later in the volume.

Reference:
Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Traité d'harmonie du pianiste, Principes rationnels de la modulation pour apprendre à préluder et à improviser, Op. 189 (1849).  German edition: Harmonielehre zunächst für Pianofortespieler als Anleitung zum Präludieren und Improvisiren, Op. 190 (1849). Source: IMSLP; digital facsimile of a copy in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.