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 dominant major 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 dominant major-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 (subscribe to hear this) 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.

Eight songs by Marion Bauer, part 4

The last three of the eight songs, all published in 1921, are "Gold of the Day and Night," "Night in the Woods," and "Thoughts."

"Gold of the Day and Night": A point of interest is the CM7 at the beginning (circled). Another of the many cases in music after 1890 where much attention is given to a particularly voiced if traditionally dissonant sonority--observe that the CM7 is promptly repeated--but where one can, if one insists, hear a triad resolution (on the fourth eighth note of bar 1 in this case, at which point the 7 is gone). The parallel instance--a possible CM13 (second circle)--is pushed off more quickly by the chromatic voiceleading (D# making a V#5), but the repetition in bar 4 definitely sounds independent.

The first section ends with a clear cadence using V9b5 (boxed).

After that, a major dominant ninth chord appears once, but as part of a descending bass progression, once the bass begins to move down the section's Ab pedal.

"Night in the Woods": A contemplative song with stronger presence of classically voiced major and minor triads, diatonic dissonances, and wavering tonal center (Phrygian at the outset, possibly A minor or A Dorian in the section below, ending in/on D major). There are three sections: this is the second half and ending of the first section.

This is the parallel place in the close to the second section.

"Thoughts": Much more traditional than "Night," with a V9 to begin the piano's introduction. The dotted box shows that V7, not V9, is the presence just as the voice enters.

Here is the parallel place ending the first section and overlapping into the second. In bar 21, the same "throw-away" ninth (F4; arrow) that we saw in "Only of Thee and Me" renders the resolution an almost proper V9.

Eight songs by Marion Bauer, part 3

Here are two more of the songs published in 1921: "A Parable" and "Roses Breathe in the Night." 

As a dramatic song in a minor key, "A Parable" does not offer much of an opening for the dominant major ninth. In fact, this is the best we can do:

Someone *might* construe the climax chord as a ninth with flat 5 (dotted boxes), but honestly I don't think so. I don't trust chords in the middle of a pedal point passage (and in any case the ninth is immediately lost, both times).

Things are really not much better in "Roses Breathe in the Night." The motivic middle-voice half-step play (see the accented notes B-A# in the opening) does not invite anything like the open sound of the ninth chord, but we get at least this in bars 6 & 7: a V9, then a raised fifth (and seventh)--as A#4 and C#4) and continued movement up to B4 and D4.

At the end of the first section, the climax chord is not a V9 but A: iiø7 (circled); V9 does appear in the cadence (boxed) but then the mode promptly shifts to minor with the tonic, erasing any subsequent influence.

Eight songs by Marion Bauer, part 2

In this post I will look at the two earlier songs: "Send Me a Dream" (1912) and "Only of Thee and Me" (1914).

"Send Me a Dream" has an unusually large number of direct and "almost direct" resolutions of the dominant major-ninth chord. Here are two near the beginning. Neither ninth resolves by step, but both chords are clearly independent harmonies acting as V9s in context. Note that the second chord is inverted.

The situation is less clear a few bars later. In the dotted box is a harmony better heard as Eb: viiø7/V. I have made the second box solid but its identity as a ninth is only slightly improved, as the voice's F5 could still be heard as an appoggiatura.

At bar 44 is another instance of a clearly defined secondary V9.

And here are even more just a few bars later.

The climax chord (bars 67-68) is a V9 with more iterations of the ninth than I have seen anywhere else to date. At bar 72 is the chord from bar 12, now in root position, and as a surprise G9 appears in the final bars without function, as part of a coloristic wedge figure.

By comparison, "Only of Thee and Me" has just one point of interest, and it's a dominant 7th with raised 5th that only becomes a ninth chord (still with raised 5th) when the voice puts in a "throw-away" note D5. The first time (end of the first verse) D5 disappears for sake of A4; the second time (third verse and ending) it acts as ^6 resolving upward to ^8.

Eight songs by Marion Bauer, part 1

Twelve songs by Marion Bauer are readily available through IMSLP. Of those, eight make use of dominant major-ninth harmonies: "The Epitaph of a Butterfly," "Gold of the Day and Night," "Night in the Woods," "Only of Thee and Me," "A Parable," "Roses Breathe in the Night," "Send Me a Dream," and "Thoughts." I am uncertain of composition dates; IMSLP has publication dates of 1912 for "Send Me a Dream," 1914 for "Only of Thee and Me," and 1921 for the others. These correspond to the copyright notices.

The poets are Thomas Walsh (Epitaph), Katharine Adams (Gold; Thoughts), Edward Rowland Sill (Night), Louis Untermeyer (Only), Stephen Crane (Parable), Margaret Widdemer (Roses), and Emilie Francis Bauer (Send).

The first of the eight--"The Epitaph of a Butterfly"--is remarkable in being grounded on a G9 harmony. Treatment of V9 in the others is more typical of American songs in the period after about 1890, both in operettas and musicals and for domestic or recital use.

I'll begin with "The Epitaph of a Butterfly"--see the score below. The poem is a brief narrative of a butterfly in late autumn, falling into a pool to die. The imagery of light and color were an invitation to write in an Impressionist style that reminds me, at least, of Griffes' song "Symphony in Yellow" and perhaps even the opening of "The White Peacock." (Bauer and Griffes were friends, incidentally.)

I have ventured a chordal reduction below and emphasize that it is both informal and biased. The former is inevitable, the latter acknowledges that I have firmly resisted any further reduction to triad abstractions or even to a more plausible series of chord roots. In any case, observe that the chordal repertoire is entirely dominant sevenths (on G, A) and ninths (on G, C, Eb, B), half-diminished sevenths (on G, B) and a mixture of major seventh and add6 (on C).

Here is an annotated version of bars 7-16 (with chord roots added in bars 9-10). The passage begins with a familiar succession of roots in fifths and thirds (G, C, Eb, implied Ab to follow) but with dominant ninth chords. After that is some typical late-19th century chromaticism relying heavily on the ambiguous half-diminished seventh chord. The shift is easily explained by the contrasting texts: "hope" in bars 7-10, followed by a vain search for a "comrade." Finally, note the curiously traditional 2-3 bass suspension at the end (2-3 or 9-10 being the only bass suspension allowed in ancient counterpoint). Also, the V7/ii itself can be explained by separating out the left-hand elements in bar 17--see the end of the example below. The first thing we hear is in fact ii, not V, as iiadd6; only on the third quarter beat is the bass G2 sounded. Although the overall effect here is certainly that of a break, the harmony does offer some continuity.

New publications: Dominant Ninth, 1900-1924, Parts 1 & 2

I have published The Dominant Ninth in Music from 1900 to 1924 on the Texas ScholarWorks platform. Part 1: link.   Part 2: link.

Abstract for Part 1:

By about 1890, the major dominant ninth harmony had become firmly established in compositional and improvisational practice. After 1900, this harmony was routinely used in many musical genres. The two parts of this essay sample a few of these occurrences in repertoires ranging from those that are surprisingly conservative (American marches and ragtime) to those that are remarkably adventurous (French Impressionists and the English and American musicians influenced by them). Composers represented in Part 1 include Costa Nogueras, Friml, Hageman, Herbert, Joplin, Kern, Lehar, Lincke, MacDowell, and Sousa.

Abstract for Part 2:

This continues the study of the major dominant ninth harmony in European and European-influenced music after 1900. Composers represented in Part 2 are Claude Debussy, Lili Boulanger, and Charles Griffes. Scholarship by Taylor Greer, Keith Waters, and Deborah Williamson is summarized and discussed. Composers whose stage works are discussed in the introduction are Herbert, Lehar, Mozart and Wagner.