Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Aldwell and Schachter, Christ et al

The recently renewed series on the dominant ninth chord in treatises and textbooks began with comment on six volumes from the early 20th century: link to the first post. I am now leading us toward the present again with two items from the 1960s and 1970s. These pick up from the 2023 series that included Forte, Gauldin, and others from roughly the same period: link to the first post. I am using editions for which I have physical copies; I will collate with more recent editions when I can.

Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading, 2d ed. (1989). The first edition was 1978.

Chapter 27 (of 32) is titled "Sevenths with Added Dissonances," which says most of what we need to know--with the important exception that they begrudgingly acknowledge the dominant ninth chord as an independent sonority: "Except, perhaps, for V9 in root position, ninth chords are best understood as seventh chords that support an additional dissonant tone of figuration" (454). 

Their origin explanation is clumsy: "Adding ^6 to V7 produces the dominant ninth chord" (441). The example is the second strain of Schubert, D734n5.

It's hard to imagine Schubert improvising for his friends' dancing and thinking "What if I add ^6?" Here, extension by stacked thirds is far more likely, and it's practical: it's easy to do, in this instance it fits the pianist's hand, and it enriches the sound. The phenomenon of third pairs is hardly unusual; here are several more from D734 (the title for the set, "Wiener-Damen Ländler," btw, is the publisher's, not Schubert's).

And here are three more; these are from keyboard reductions of an orchestral dance set by Hummel. All show clearly the Ländler's link to the 18th-century pastoral topic.



The authors indulge in a lengthy comparison of the V7 and V9 chords (443), which comes down to the seventh influences harmonic direction whereas the ninth just resolves to a note already in the chord. They don't mention that this note is most often in the bass, nor do they seem to realize that 4 of 5 examples of progressions with V9--their Ex. 27-4--all involve definite chord changes. All of this amounts to a very wordy defense of the more traditional views we've seen many times before. Consistent with that, they ignore other diatonic ninth chords. 

Finally, I should mention that, as in many other texts, dominant major ninths and dominant minor ninths are given attention. Examples list (these are all brief excerpts): 

for the dominant major ninth, from Schubert, Ländler D734n5, D365n2; Beethoven, Sonata, op. 10n1, I; op. 24n1, II; Chopin, Barcarolle, op. 60; Mazurka, op. 63n2; Schumann, Liederkreis, op. 39 "Mondnacht." 

for the dominant minor ninth, Beethoven, Sonata, op. 31n1, I; Chopin, Barcarolle, op. 60; Mazurka, op. 63n2; Dvorak, Symphony op. 88, IV; Schumann, Symphony op. 38, I; Dichterliebe "Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen." 

for "elevenths" and "thirteenths," Bruckner, Symphony no. 8, III; Chopin, Ballade, op. 38; Ravel, Valses nobles et sentimentales, I; Schumann, Fantasy, op. 17, I; Novellettes, op. 21, no. 8.

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William Christ, Richard DeLone, Vernon Kliewer, Lewis Rowell, and William Thomson, Materials and Structure of Music, 2 vols., 2d ed. (1972).

Ninth chords appear in chapter 4 (of 17) in volume 2. Elevenths and thirteenths are in chapter 13, which is titled "enriched tonal resources"; it has a number of sensible observations about chordal ambiguity to recommend it. Chapter 15, "Harmony in Twentieth-Century Music," opens with a section on atypical 11th and 13th chord constructions.

The curriculum for which Materials and Structure of Music was designed (in Indiana University's School of Music) was a limited version of what was called "comprehensive musicianship"; that is, it combined literature (repertoire), harmony, counterpoint, and form analysis. One obvious result is a heavy emphasis on examples from repertoire in various historical periods of European and European-influenced music.

Perhaps in alignment with that priority, chapter 4 is distinctive in that it opens with explanation of diatonic ninth chords in general, not the dominant ninth, which first appears on page 3 in a brief excerpt from Tristan und Isolde. Starting a page later, it is given 6 1/2 pages, and non-dominant ninths follow with another 3 pages. The prescriptions and recommendations for notes omitted, resolution, progression contexts, and voicings are all familiar. Despite the claim of repertoire breadth, the seven examples for the dominant ninth are from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Wagner. Examples for the non-dominant ninths are also seven; they do include Mahler, Ravel, and Wolf.

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