Ascending resolutions of the ninth

 One feature of practices with the major dominant ninth—and one that applies to eleventh and thirteenth chords as well—is the upward resolution of the characteristic note. Instances of the ninth ascending as in (a) start in repertoire as early as Schubert waltzes from around 1820 (link 1; link 2). By 1850, these were well integrated into practice, especially in the dance repertoires and in music for stage that made use of dance genres. After about 1860, a stationary resolution to ^6 in Iadd6 (not shown) was also an option. After about 1890, resolutions such as the one at the right, V9 to I7, became possible, too.

The examples in (b1)-(b3) are sequences with paired roots in thirds, (b1) with a chromatic line in the upper voice, (b2) with a diatonic line (as if beginning in C major), and (b3) with ascending thirds and all chords as dominant ninths. Note that these are not traditional ascending resolutions: the first is stationary, and the second descends by a half-step. It's only if you extend "resolution" to include parallelism of function that A4 could go to C#5 and E5 to G5.  At (b4) are two smooth resolutions that take the ninth to #11 in the subsequent chord.

At (c), both upper voice and bass move by seconds in contrary motion. The second chords carry a #11, like (b4) above. Under "Chabrier" the voices are in parallel motion. More about this example below, as also for (d), where the bass changes at the tritone.

The chord pair shown above is from Emmanuel Chabrier's opera Le Roi malgré lui (1887). The example is from Lenormand's chapter on ninth chords (Study of Modern Harmony (Eng. trans 1915; French original 1912)).

The entr'acte between Acts II & III does not focus on the ninth--it is a pastoral Andantino that mostly uses the traditional progressions involving dominant and diminished seventh types. Here is the simple ii–V–I cadence (bars 25-28) followed by what sounds like a coda extension of the tonic via a pedal point.

This passage beginning at 29, however, breaks into further development, in course of which the parallel dominant ninth chords appear. It is only at bar 44 that a coda proper starts, entirely over a tonic pedal. The three chords in Lenormand's example are clear, and note that there is a fourth one, as well.

Here is Lenormand's example with the tritone resolution, from Florent Schmitt's piano quintet (published 1908). The slow movement is very long, the heart of the piece, really, and the quoted passage occurs relatively early, around bar 35 and the first change of key signature (from no sharps or flats to 5 flats—it turns out that Db major is the primary key).

As it happens, Lenormand doesn't quite get the chords right, as the first one is G9 with a flat 5--see the box below. Furthermore, the ninth is not at all so prominent as the example suggests--see the circled notes: second violin and viola abandon their A-natural or B-double flat, the cello actually resolves down, not up, and it's the piano that takes A3 to Bb3, but in the middle of its arpeggiations.

Here are some other examples with ascending resolutions. 

to c:

Sibelius, 5 Danses Champêtres for violin and piano, op.106

The Danses Champêtres were published in 1924. The first number is the focus of attention here. As with Roussel's Divertissement, I cannot hear the opening chords clearly as the major dominant ninth, here as IV9 in D minor, but the argument is much harder to make this time. Here is the opening in the violin:

Obviously a strongly articulated D minor triad followed by a close to the dominant. But Sibelius puts this (below) in the piano and the triad is undermined/colored/shifted/nuanced/you-name-it by a powerful d: IV9 (first box), then IV4/3 at the bottom of the melody D4 (second box), and the harmony isn't anywhere near A minor when the melody closes on A5 (in the second system).

As I said, I really ought to hear d:IV9 at the opening but I have listened several times to one of the excellent commercial recordings available through subscription to IMSLP and I just can't do it. The violin part is one element; also, there's more of a D minor triad in the first chord than G9; A5 is at the top of the chord at beat 3 but the frame of the chord--disregarding the held bass G for the moment--is still D minor; and B-nat sounds as much like an add6 as a chordal third. Beyond that, the appearance of IV9 in a minor key context is a surprise, and the traditional topical expectations for a major dominant ninth chord are all off: a powerful, sombre gesture rather than the pastoral or the Wagnerian moment of excess emotion. In sum, then, I know I ought to hear this is as a clear IV9 but I can't.

The situation doesn't change for later transposed statements. Here's one:

Only at the end is the passage played "as it should be" with an elaborate flourish over d: N6–V6/4-5/3 and a resounding D minor triad:

Roussel, Divertissement for Woodwind Quintet and Piano, op. 6 (1906)

 On the face of it, Roussel's Divertissement would seem to be a good companion for the small company of pieces that make the dominant ninth chord integral to large-scale harmonic design. I've written about one on this blog: Marion Bauer's "Epitaph of a Butterfly" and another—Charles Griffes's White Peacock—in an essay published on the Texas Scholarworks platform: The Dominant Ninth in Music from 1900 to 1924, Part 1: you can check this blog post for an abstract and link: 2020 June 5.

As it happens, however, although Roussel gives a prominent place to a D9 chord as G:V9 at the beginning, (1) unlike the pieces named above, it doesn't hold that place in overall design amongst a rich play of harmonies and tonal regions; (2) it doesn't really even sound like a dominant ninth.

Here is the figure with which the piano opens:

I listened to the excellent commercial recording accessed from the IMSLP page for this piece (one may need to subscribe to hear this--I'm not sure) and, although the notes are all there, to my ear the sound isn't anything like the traditional V9. Voicing (distribution of the notes) is key: the ninth isn't at the top (instead there's the seventh and even the octave on each second beat) and a cluster at the bottom has E4 in the middle of it.

To make things worse—that is, to undermine the V9 sound more—once the quintet members enter, the clarinet (in A) plays A3, which more than hints at a complex chord based on A, with E as its fifth and its third C at the top. See at the first arrow. The theme is in the oboe.

Here is a simplified version of the opening, with annotations.

The second arrow in the original score above points to a downward shift in the piano's left-hand figure. This effectively negates any possible V9 function and in fact now offers a clear Am7.

The left hand keeps descending and offers just a passing hint of the opening sonority (boxed) before reaching I7, which relaxes to Iadd6 very briefly (the tempo is fast) before Am7 reasserts itself at |1|.

As just one example of the kaleidoscope of harmonies that ensues, here is the next entrance of the theme. The persistent G4 does more than suggest B7/b13.

Two more themes are mixed in, both of them easily heard as derivatives of the main theme, but then the tempo suddenly turns slow (Lent) and we hear a section in the orientalist style at which Roussel excelled. Then fast again, slow again, and the transition into a final fast section brings this:

. . . followed by

Here are a few ways to look at this progression:

Figure (a) shows what might have happened to the F7 in a traditional progression--such chromatic movements of the bass (here F-F#-G) were common already in the early 18th century; the assumed key is either Bb major or G minor. Figure (b) tries to account, again in traditional terms, for the change from F7 to Fm7, but going that way one ends up in Eb major. Figures (c) & (d) show simplified close voiceleading for the chord sequence in the score, (c) with the traditional resolution of the 7th Eb down, (d) exchanging the outer voices (Eb5 becomes Eb4; F4 becomes F5) so that one can arrive on D9. Neither of these is exactly what Roussel does, as you can see from looking again at the score excerpt above.

The troublesome A3 reappears, now in the bassoon, and the flute's E5 is solid confirmation of A as root. The long notes D4 in clarinet and horn make for an overall effect of Am(sus4) until the bassoon lands on D3 (circled in the last bar of the first system).

The insertion of IV between the V & I of the closing cadence is a fairly common device in French music by about 1890. Below is a simplified version of the passage above.