Rise and fall of the dominant ninth chord

A one-paragraph historical narrative: 

The major dominant-ninth chord ("V9" or just "dominant ninth") gradually became a significant stylistic element in European and European-influenced music over the course of the nineteenth century. Early on it appeared in dance-based and song genres—notably, Schubert’s—in connection with expressive treatments of scale degree ^6. Through pastoral but especially dance-based numbers it found its way onto the musical stage by the mid-1830s in both comic and dramatic works. By the 1850s it became associated with both climactic and pastoral moments in Wagnerian opera. By 1890, the two practices of drama and dance—exemplified by Wagner and Johann Strauss, jr., respectively—were firmly established and can be found in a majority of the music from that point through the first half of the 20th century, including some concert music, but especially operettas, musicals, salon or recital pieces, and commercial song repertoires. Before the end of the 19th century the major dominant-ninth chord had also established itself as one of the characteristic sounds of contemporary or Impressionist concert music, in part because of its close relation to the whole-tone scale (four notes out of five). Although that style did persist into the 1930s, already by 1925 the major dominant-ninth sound was considered passé by younger concert composers and was often actively avoided.      (text edited 2024-09-23; 2025-01-05; 2025-08-14)

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Find here an updated index of essays published on the Texas ScholarWorks platform, with abstracts and links: --> link. Essays on the dominant ninth are in §2, beginning on p. 10. Within this blog, of course, the search function can be used to locate specific names, titles, etc., and post titles can be browsed in the sidebar. -- 18 December 2024: I have published the fourth and last part in the most recent series: Dominant Ninth Harmonies in Music from 1900 to 1925, Part 4. Here is the link.

Harmony at the Ninth: The repertoire problem

 In a previous post, I outlined a harmony pedagogy that would place the ninth chord near the beginning of the curriculum, not—as is typically the case (if it's taught at all)—somewhere near the end. I also noted that my plan got into trouble at the point of choosing repertoire. I'll discuss the three main reasons here: (1) repertoire bias in the traditional theory core curriculum; (2) conflict between 18th/19th century and 20th/21st century theoretical models; (3) difficulty in finding entirely diatonic examples suitable for first-year theory classroom use.

To begin, I have assembled and posted to my Google Drive a list of all the musical examples for the five essays on the dominant ninth chord that I have published on the Texas ScholarWorks platform to date: 

V9 essays repertoire list. 

The essays are named at the beginning of the file, and abstracts and links are provided.

(1) repertoire bias in the traditional theory core curriculum

The historical narrative for classical music that prevailed through much of the 20th century was progressive, that is, it began from one point (usually medieval chant) and led by more or less regular steps forward into contemporary music. So, we have the first inklings of counterpoint around 1000 AD, eventually a perfected polyphony in the 16th century, an organized major/minor tonal system thanks to continuo practice and pedagogy in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, and a gradual expansion or break-down of that system through more complex harmonic relations and increased chromaticism in the 19th century, till we reached a fully chromatic model epitomized by twelve-tone and serial music. Despite this scheme, the heart of the story remained with the High Classical period (sometimes called the First Viennese School) with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

This is the narrative I learned as a young student. We had only just begun to acknowledge some of its problems even by the time I started college in 1968. For my purposes here, though, and beyond noting that these repertoire biases have barely changed in mainstream college introductory theory textbooks, the one point that is immediately relevant can be easily understood by a quick comparison of the repertoire list linked above with two textbook-based lists. The smaller of the two is derived from Kostka & Payne, 3rd ed. (even earlier than my 4th ed. copy!): David Temperley corpus study: see the bottom of that web page. The larger is the table of contents for the score anthology by Benjamin, Horvit, Koozin, and Nelson, Music for Analysis, 8th edition (2018).

Temperley extracts the 46 longest examples from the Kostka & Payne workbook. Of these, 29 are by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. For these 29, 11 are from piano sonatas, 3 from other pieces for piano, 9 from chamber music, 2 from concertos, 3 songs, and 1 opera.

Benjamin, Horvit, Koozin, and Nelson has 477 examples ranging from the 17th century to the present. Of these, 378 are prior to 1900, with 175 by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. For the 378, 49 are from piano sonatas, 12 from other pieces for piano, 32 from chamber music, 2 from concertos, 15 songs and vocal ensemble music, and 5 operas. In addition, 24 are dances in keyboard format, and 37 are from orchestral ensemble music (symphonies and overtures).

For reference, in Benjamin, Horvit, Koozin, and Nelson there are two examples from Johann Strauss, jr., while in Temperley's extracts from Kostka & Payne there are none—which points up the problem: there is very little intersection between their lists and mine, in which Johann Strauss, jr. and sr. dominate. Some important caveats: Apart from the Strausses, my study of the major dominant ninth chord is skewed toward the decades surrounding 1900. As I have noted in essays, I have generally looked at shorter compositions; for longer works, I use keyboard reductions rather than full scores but I haven't focused on large instrumental ensemble music and have done even less with chamber music. I have studied dances—especially polkas and waltzes—throughout the 19th century, not just Schubert dances. The historical circumstance that ascending cadence gestures, upper-register cadences, and clear treatment of the major dominant ninth all seem to have arisen in music for dance led me to the larger repertoires that incorporated them, beginning with opéra comique in the 1830s, then blossoming in operetta in the 1850s and later. In general, composers—including Schubert himself—would be more conservative when writing in the larger instrumental forms than in the popular forms of dance music and music for the stage. In another post I will report on my look at the Allegretto grazioso quasi Andantino in Brahms's Symphony no. 2 and at his Waltzes, op. 39. Even in the midst of the Schubert craze of the 1860s—to which he also contributed—Brahms was a genius at suggesting but avoiding the two characteristic chords of scale degree ^6: the dominant ninth and the add6.

(2) conflict between 18th/19th century and 20th century theoretical models

Textbooks still lump the “extended chords” together, in a model of progressive stacked thirds, even if, as Kostka & Payne remark in their 4th ed.: "Just as superimposed 3rds produce triads and seventh chords, continuation of that process yields ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth chords (which is not to say that this is the manner in which these sonorities evolved historically)." (!!) Jazz theory, on the other hand, doesn't bother with that, because the harmonic vocabulary is based on the dominant seventh with a variety of sounds, "tensions," and alterations built on it. In Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book (1995), for example, "extensions" (9th, 11th, 13th) are listed in the glossary, but the ninth chord is never explicitly introduced in the text. Instead, it simply appears in the first example for the II-V-I progression:

This version of the opening of "Stella by Starlight" is a concise catalogue of the three main 9th chord types, but note that none of Levine's chord labels (above the score; mine are below in blue) indicates a 9.

Here are some additional examples drawn from different places in The Jazz Theory Book. My labels are below the score. The 9 is included in the fourth chord only because it is altered (G-nat = Fx).

(* I am grateful to UT-Austin doctoral alum and friend Joel Love for telling me about Levine's book. Link: His web page.)

(3) difficulty in finding entirely diatonic examples suitable for first-year theory classroom use

My first examples would, of course, come from Schubert waltzes, but it turned out to be difficult to find simple examples of V9 without also including chromatic chords. Here is the second strain of Valses nobles, D. 969, n11 (1828), with its "textbook perfect" V9 with a direct resolution. Bars 5-6 would require some discussion, however.

In their section on the dominant ninth, Benjamin, Horvit, Koozin, and Nelson include Strauss's Künstlerleben, one of the best known of his mid-period waltzes. I don't know what they say about it, as I don't have a copy of the anthology, but I can say that I find the choice of no. 3 particularly good because the ninth appears several times in different roles, and the only chromatic consideration is a relatively simple cadence to V at the halfway point. At (a) and (c) are internal resolutions (9 resolves within V). At (b) and (d) are "almost direct" resolutions (9 is held over the first part of I); the example below the score shows what a direct resolution would have been in (b). At (e) is the upward resolution of 9 that facilitates an ascending cadence. And at (f1) & (f2) is a very common device that flips the functional status of scale degrees ^7 & ^6: at (f1) ^7 is a simple chord tone and ^6 forms the ninth, but at (f2) ^7 is an appoggiatura and ^6 is a simple chord tone.

Simplified, correct, but not as expressive version of bars 6-8:

The question of repertoire choices appropriate for different levels can be explored through the repertoire list mentioned and linked to at the top of this post. I can add here that I have studied but have not yet reported on stage works from opéras comiques of the 1830s (mainly Adam, Auber) to operetta (Offenbach, Lecocq, Strauss), Savoy opera (Sullivan), and American operetta (Herbert) and musical (Kern). And of course there is something still to be said about that "genius of avoidance," Brahms.

General comments

This may be a good moment to pause the survey of treatises and textbooks in order to make a few observations of a more general kind and to restate the goal of the survey and, beyond that, the goal of this blog.

There is a progressive historical narrative to be told, but it is not one of smooth, incremental movement from triads and seventh chords (18th century) through triads with added 6ths and ninth chords (1850?) to elevenths, thirteenths, and even more complex harmonic structures (1890? 1900?). One does find such narratives even in textbooks beginning in mid-century, but "histories of harmony" become much more common later, when history became an important cultural idea. The extended tertian chord model—stacking thirds—was particularly amenable to such accounts. As Damian Blättler describes it: "The fact that the model’s chord types can be arranged in sequence —triads are followed by seventh chords, seventh chords by ninth chords, and so on—has been used both as a pedagogical sequence and as a narrative about the development of chord types" (2013, 6). In a footnote Blättler offers an example:

A particularly clear-cut narrative claim is made by Alfredo Casella: "[Jean Marnold once said that the only musical difference between romanticism and the 18th century dwindled down to a single chord: the dominant major ninth. There is much truth in this, even though it seems to reduce a century of music to a purely technical problem.] Assuredly the chord of the major ninth, introduced by Weber, gave a totally different complexion to the entire musical language of the 19th century. Nor is it less evident that the exploitation of this chord reaches its culminating point in Debussy. . . . The following harmonic concept [the augmented 11th chord], . . . it is only in Ravel that the new chord is finally used in a constant, conscious, and spontaneous manner.”    [the section at the beginning of the quote was added from the original publication to broaden the context]

The ninth, however, was already among the figures that continuo players needed to learn in the late 17th century, and when early 18th century writers tried to gain control of the large catalogue of figures, the ninth came along, too. In practice, the common figures of the ninth were relatively few:

(It is important to remember that these are figures designed for musical practice, not theoretical categories. Thus, 9-8 might mean 9-8 over 3 as in (1) above in one city, but it might mean 9-8 over 4-3 as in (2) in another city or region; it might also mean either (1) or (2) in still a third city or region, the continuo keyboard player being expected to make an appropriate choice according to the circumstance.)

All of these we would understand as linear formations (probably suspensions, but also appoggiaturas or accented neighbor notes), but Rameau essentially "invented" the dominant ninth as a harmony, first through his elevation of the status of the dominant, then through his notion of supposition and the subsequent reverse strategy of stacking thirds. Because of his influence, (almost) everyone after him accepted the ninth chord as a harmonic entity (recall, for example, that it is among the eight basic chords in Catel's Traité: link). Thus the ninth chord was not "introduced by Weber"—it was a theoretically accepted harmony, but one without any real presence in practice (according to the treatise authors).

In fact, thanks to the exploitation of ^6 in the major key, as Jeremy Day-O'Connell has documented, the dominant ninth harmony—in its characteristically complex position as sometimes linear, sometimes harmonic—was already a part of musical practice no later than 1820, especially in music for dance. Here, as a reminder, are several examples from Schubert. (At least some of these were not presented in previous posts or in essays published on Texas ScholarWorks.) I looked at his last published set, the Valses nobles, D. 969, generally regarded as intended more for performance than as accompaniment for dancing. In no. 11, at (a), is a direct resolution. At (b), note the parallel treatment of V7, and at (c) the realization of the ascent through the upper tetrachord, G5-C6, that was encouraged by freer—and this case expressively and structurally significant—treatment of ^6.

In no. 2, a plainly audible indirect resolution with unfolded thirds: F#5 to E5, D5 to C#5. In the cadence the figure encourages an open ending (IAC, not PAC, with the melody on ^3).

In no. 5, another parallel treatment of the type most common in the waltz throughout the century: ^6-^5 over the dominant (bar 9), then ^6-^5 over the tonic (bar 11). Here the ninth is resolved internally, and the chord in bar 9 has to be regarded as an inversion of V7.

In no. 1, at (a), the internal resolution is stretched over three bars (A5 in bars 4-5 to G5 in bar 7). As in no. 11, the upper tetrachord remains important: in the cycle of fifths sequence at (b), then in the dramatic rising cadence at (c).

In no. 4, the urge toward the upper register is treated a bit differently. At (a), an accented ^6 resolves internally, and within the bar, is repeated, then repeated again as the dominant in the cadence (bar 7). The design is a small ternary form. In the reprise, At (b), the same figure, but then carried up to the instrument's highest octave to end—at (c).

Finally, in no. 10, ^6 is an essential expressive element, but its harmonic expression is vi (in bars 4 and 12), not V9.

The dominant ninth chord as a harmony finds it way into the theatre indirectly through the dance (especially in waltz numbers) and becomes a cliché by the time of Offenbach's great successes beginning with Orfée aux Enfers (1858) and continuing through the 1860s, but we should also point to its prominent appearance in the first act of Wagner's Lohengrin (1854) and in the Prelude to Act II of Tannhäuser (1860). For the latter I presented the passage below in this post: link.

This idea of intensification of the major dominant seventh at climax points or in cadences persisted through the rest of the century and beyond, as did ^6 with both V9 and Iadd6 in music of pastoral, lyrical, or sentimental character. (In the dance and concert dance repertoire, the history of the dominant ninth is bound up with a remarkably free treatment of the scale's upper tetrachord.) Only in the 1890s did color and harmony-as-function reach parity in concert musics, and in this sense Casella was right that "exploitation of this chord reaches its culminating point in Debussy."

I do not expect any grand new revelations to emerge from the roughly twenty additional textbooks/treatises still to be surveyed and discussed in this blog. The idea is to fill out and complete the documentation, but I will be looking for additional repertoire examples, which will of course serve the main goal of the blog as originally stated.

Reference:
Damian Blättler, "A Voicing-Centered Approach to Additive Harmony Music in France, 1889-1940," PhD dissertation, Yale University, 2013.
Alfredo Casella, “Ravel’s Harmony,” The Musical Times 67, no. 996 (February 1, 1926): 124-27. (Cited by Blättler)
Charles-Simon Catel, Traité d’harmonie (Paris, 1802). Digital facsimile published on the Internet Archive. Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Note: An edition from 1874 shows no changes in text or examples for the dominant ninth. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France at gallica.bnf.fr.
Jeremy Day-O'Connell, Pentatonicism from the Eighteenth Century to Debussy (2007).

MacDowell, To a Water Lily

Edward MacDowell, "To a Water Lily" from the Woodland Sketches, op. 51 (1895). Like "To a Wild Rose," this is a simple ternary design—and with a prominent role for a dominant ninth harmony in both A and B sections.

The main theme:

Below is the second part of the B section, as in "To a Wild Rose" an expansion of the dominant, though this time with the pedal bass tone literally sounded. In the midst of this, the V9 chord appears here and there, but the beginning and ending sonorities are the dominant seventh (V7).

In the cadence, the dominant ninth harmony is given considerable attention -- boxed -- and functions as the cadential dominant -- see bar 3.

MacDowell, To a Wild Rose

Edward MacDowell, "To a Wild Rose" from the Woodland Sketches, op. 51 (1895). I have published an essay, with many details about this piece, on the Texas Scholarworks platform: link.

One aspect of "simplicity" in the main theme is the blocking of the chordal accompaniment, which adds a sort of untutored—I am tempted to say "Grandma Moses"—quality to the whole. The system below the theme score reduces the voiceleading to its textbook or classroom version, and there one can see more easily the V9 harmonies. An interesting point about bar 4: a plausible and rare second inversion of the dominant ninth chord (I write about inversions of the "extended" chords in the Gallery essay). In the cadence, we are obliged to imagine the E4 to which the ninth F#4 would resolve, but it's a very easy one in this context.

The design of "To a Wild Rose" is a simple ternary form; the relatively brief B-section is shown below.

Here again a voiceleading reduction is useful, including the addition of an obvious implied dominant pedal point (one is grateful to MacDowell's artistic sense not to ask for this literally).

In the ending, both V9/V and the cadential V9 are no longer present. Instead, we have the more traditional viiø7/V (understood by theorists of the time as the V9 without its root—a bizarre idea if we think about it now, but it made sense at the time, as everyone was attempting to adjust the system of figured bass to the new Ramellian (that's Rameau's) scheme of fundamental bass and three functions, tonic, dominant, and subdominant). Here, MacDowell makes out of the circled chord a wonderfully expressive highpoint, pianissimo.

Simon Sechter

Simon Sechter, organist, composer, teacher, and music theorist in Vienna (link), is best known now for his harmony treatise, Die Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition (3 vols., 1853: link to Internet Archive copy). Earlier, he published a Praktische Generalbass-Schule, Op.49 (1830; link to copy on IMSLP).

The treatise on figured bass is very traditional. Its focus is on the inventory of figures, how to recognize and organize them in the mind, and to learn to play the associated chords. As such, the concern with ninths is with that figure, not any specific inventory of harmonies. For instance, his first example of the "Nonaccord" is for a 9-8 suspension of a simple tonic triad--circled below.

The next is for 9-8 above seventh chords of different qualities. The one circled is a minor minor seventh chord, ii7 in C major. The dominant with major ninth appears in bars 2 and 5 (not circled).

And here is a double suspension, 9-8 with 4-3, the underlying chord being a D minor triad. Notice that Sechter throws in a dominant ninth in the cadence, further evidence that he is concerned with the figure 9, not specific chord groups.

The final example shifts away from suspensions to passing tones/chords.

For the most part, the pedagogy of theory and composition throughout the nineteenth century recognized ninth chords as vertical entities but assigned them to suspension or passing chord figures. Suspensions, to be sure, were an important part of the evolution of the independent dominant ninth harmony, but so were the varieties of incomplete neighbors (especially—but not exclusively—appoggiaturas).

Others, circa 1800-1850

Carl Czerny, 100 Progressive Recreations (alternate titles: Erster Clavier-Unterricht in 100 Unterholungen; 100 Recréations) is unusual for Czerny in that it was not assigned an opus number and the date of first publication is uncertain (at least, I can't find one easily). Also, somewhat unusually, the majority of the 100 pieces are simplified versions of familiar melodies or excerpts from larger compositions, as with Bellini's Norma in this case. This example is interesting for the suspension figure that begins with the dramatically emphasized and positioned ^6. The whole figure fits my category 1.3 best, even though the ninth is not attacked again on the strong beat.

Auber, Die Muette de Portici, n24 "Honneur" theme. Also in category 1.3 (arrow, second system third bar), but in 1.2 (arrow, second system sixth bar), the difference being that the latter is sounded on a weak beat.

Donizetti in Czerny, 100 Recreations. Category 1.3 in bar 7 (D6 on the strong beat resolves to C6 within the dominant harmony). In bars 3-4, however, I am wary of the 32nd note C6. If that is a resolution, then category 1.3 holds, but I prefer 2.1, an indirect resolution of ^6 to ^5 over the tonic chord, and therefore bar 3 is a proper dominant ninth chord.

Donizetti, Princess Helena's Polka, as arranged by Allen Dodworth (New York, 1847). The modern notation is by Robert A. Hudson. A clear V9 harmony with the uncommon rising resolution.

Rossini from La Cenerentola, in Czerny 100 Recreations. A simple emphasized upper neighbor/appoggiatura, immediately resolved within the V chord.

William Schubert, arranger, Three Favorite Polkas (Philadelphia, 1845), n1. Indirect resolution of the ninth to the fifth of the tonic chord, category 2.1.

Allen Dodworth, Very Best Polka (New York, 1850). The modern notation is by Robert A. Hudson. As above, indirect resolution (category 2.1). In bars 6-8, ^5 is easily imagined given the earlier figure in bars 2-4.

Henri Appy, Elizabeth Polka. Published in St. Louis in 1853. Direct (or very quick indirect) resolution (boxed). An ascending cadence gesture in bars 7-8.

W. P. Badger, Pascagoula Melodies n1: Union Polka (Boston, 1853). Direct resolution in the boxes.

Ferdinand Beyer, Trois Polkas, op 51, n1: Camellia Polka (Mainz, 1846?).

Johann Strauss, sr.

Johann Strauss, sr.—also called Johann Strauss I in the literature—was an excellent violinist who started playing professionally under Michael Pamer, the most important connection between the earlier waltz and Laendler traditions and urban practices after about 1820. Strauss then played under Josef Lanner, but soon formed his own band (in 1825) and enjoyed immediate success. The pieces below come from the last two years of his life; he died in 1849.

Strauss, sr. Damen Souvenir Polka, op236, second strain. An indirect—actually very nearly direct—resolution, thus either category 2.1 or 2.4 depending on how you hear it.

Strauss, sr., Die Sorgenbrecher Walzer, op230n2. Here Strauss puts such emphasis on E6, as the ninth, that it is not hard to imagine we hear a D6 over the subsequent tonic.

The remaining examples are also direct resolutions to the tonic (my category 2.3).

Strauss, sr., Wiener Kreuze Polka, op220

Strauss, sr., op236, first strain

Strauss, sr., Exeter Polka, op249 2trio

Strauss, sr., Die Adepten Walzer, op216n5

Josef Lanner

Josef Lanner is the one contemporary about whom we can be confident that he influenced Schubert's own waltz improvisation and composition. We know that Schubert heard Lanner’s orchestra in live performance, probably on multiple occasions and while Johann Strauss, sr., was still a member of the band.

Lanner, Trennungs-Walzer (1828), op19_n5, first strain. A curiously reversed resolution in bars 9-10. The circles throughout the strain show the overwhelming dissonance-resolution motive. In bars 9-10, however, the third of the underlying chord (D#5/D#6) is resolved to the ninth C#5/C#6!

Lanner, Flora-Walzer, op33_n4, first strain. Scale degree ^6 is a melodic element in each instance.

Lanner, Redout-Carneval-Tänze (second set; 1830), op42_n5, first strain. Similar to op19n5 in its motive, but now there is no "mistake" about the resolution of ^6.

Lanner, op19_n2. As in the previous example.

Lanner, op33_n4, second strain. Similar to one of the examples from Schubert in its sustained drive upwards culminating on the highly expressive ^6 as the ninth of the dominant.

Lanner, op42_n6. Three different treatments of the ninth, at (a), (b), and (c).

The remaining examples are all direct resolutions, that is, the ninth resolves not within the dominant but in the following tonic.

Lanner, op33_n5.

Lanner, op42_n5, second strain

Lanner, Alpen-Rosen Walzer (1842), op162 n3

Lanner, op162 n4

Lanner, Die Romantiker (1842), op167 n4