Paul Creston, Sonata for Saxophone and Piano (1945).
In the previous post I discussed two compositions in which the dominant major-ninth chord was entirely or almost entirely absent. Creston's sonata, long one of the standards for saxophone students, is quite different. The majority of the harmony would probably be called non-functional, but Creston--in contrast to Muczynski--makes much more use of familiar sonorities and occasionally clear traditional progressions, as the opening bars demonstrate. It's not annotated but the first five left-hand chords are whole-tone fragments.
Unambiguous ninth chords aren't common, but they and other tall chords based on dominant sevenths do play a role, especially in quieter sections and lyrical secondary themes, as below:
The highpoint of the lyrical treatment is in the second theme of the finale, the centerpiece of an ABA form scheme. I've supplied the bass for the entire section. Note the appearance of triads (very rare earlier), M7s and M9s at the beginning, then more and more dominant 7ths and ninths later.
One-paragraph historical narrative: link. ---- Updated index to this blog and essays on Texas ScholarWorks. Here is the link. ---- List of all my essays on Texas ScholarWorks: link, then click on Filters/Author.
