Bird Calls
JEAN PHILIPPE RAMEAU: "Pieces de clavecin, Book 1, Suite No. 1: Le Rappel des oiseuax"
Some composers who wrote harmony textbooks:
•Sessions (name-dropped tirelessly by academics but seldom performed anymore)
•Piston (seldom name-dropped- not adventurous enough for current tastes)
•Adler (you have never heard a piece by Adler unless you are the type who buys classical music magazines)
•Persichetti (I've played exactly one piece by Persichetti- a cacophonous thing for wind ensemble with an infuriating scheme for barring the rests)
•Schönberg (please insert your own opinion about Mr. Schönberg)
and, drum roll:
•Jean Philippe Rameau
Rameau's various works on harmony (the one I am reading is the ubiquitous Dover 'Traité de l'harmonie') are the greatest, most bracing approach to understanding tonal harmony and voice-leading I have ever encountered. His stuff is, admittedly, extremely confusing and hard to read. Moreover, he tries - in pure Enlightment fashion - to back up all his theories with the latest discoveries in (not-quite-right pre-Newtonian) science and the works of 'the ancients' (musty whiff of renaissance humanism.) However, even his 'wrong' ideas are so interesting and make so much practical sense that you're glad you've encountered them. Moreover, it offers a snapshot of harmony as it existed at the beginning of the 18th century- up for grabs, so to speak. Nobody wrote the rules on stone-tablets, instead they struggled for guiding principles derived from how everybody was already composing and - this is what is most refreshing for me - acknowledged that they weren't certain.
The Rameau work DeVoto includes in "Mostly Short Pieces" is a little AB keyoard piece (deja vu) called "Le Rappel des oiseaux" - which is, I think, something like "The Calling-Together of the Birds." Within the context of this anthology, it is suddenly more complex in terms of both harmony and melodic figuration than the pieces which preceded it- a dam has burst. Whereas Couperin uses diminished chords as a colorful trick to slide between keys, Rameau uses dissonance in big, thrilling slabs (well, within the context-this isn't Ruggles). It is, in other words, the first example of a fully-realized chromatic style.
Part A is almost entirely in two voices- they spend most of their time on and above the treble staff, frequently brushing against each other and interlocking in their figurations. It is very hard to evoke, in words, exactly how their melodies run- a little mordent figure recurs frequently (presumably the bird call) and each line moves not stepwise (diatonically, Rameau would say) but rather leaps from one chord-tone to another across whichever chord is in play. In this sense, the piece illustrates Rameau's theory that melody arises from harmony. Two sonorities make up the bulk of Part A- a long, long iteration of a i chord (we're in e-minor, incidentally) that calls to mind two birds chattering at each other, and then an equally long, long iteration of a diminished vii chord. From there, we move into a rather dark sequence based on the existing melodic figures- i, VI, a diminished vii-ish, v-ish, dimished ii-ish, then a long stretch of V moving to V iv v VI V i. I say 'ish' of some of the chords because, since the piece exists in two voices, there's some ambiguity about how exactly some of these harmonic sections should be named, although I think I'm pretty accurate about how they function. Moreover, I've glossed over some very dissonant little moments that arise from the voice leading- these inevitably are just passing sonorities before a stronger chord. Rameau is the first composer in this anthology who is almost casual in his use of bitter dissonance to act as a predominant. The diminished ii and vii are used frequently, and illustrate his idea that all such diminished chords are just piled-up thirds from an implied dominant or predominant.
Part B is much more complicated. Rameau launches into it in the unprepared relative major- G major, in this case. There is a long, long chattering iteration of the G major chord, and it then proceeds through a fairly convention progression to further establish the key- I ii V I V ii vi...
But then things get weird. An open fifth of B and F-sharp appears, moving to a V - and then a V7 - of B. So, suddenly we're in B minor- but we've only had one tonic of B minor before it mutates into a dimished vii of A minor, then into something even more diminished-sounding, and then a V of F-sharp - then another diminished chord - then- B major? But just for a couple beats before that D-sharp slides down to a D-natural, putting us back in B minor, which soon embarks on a short progress through all the most dissonant chords of B minor- a dimished ii7, a diminished vii9 and then- sequence. B min to V of A to A min to V of G to G to a C major 7 chord (?!) back to - e minor.
That last paragraph of mine makes for very bad reading because it attempts - and this never works - to explain what was, for Rameau, just an episode of chromaticism. This passage of harmony is all altered tones and subverted resolutions, dazzling and shifting, full of prepared and unprepared dissonances and implied suspensions. Some tricks - like the abrupt step from B major to B minor, seem especially radical, and I think the overall effect was intended to be an Englightment keyboard version of one of those story-themed Disney rollercoaster rides- it starts at a steady speed (to go slowly past the robot forest animals or whatever) but suddenly embarks on a course full of abrupt turns and sick-making drops. And, eventually, it disgorges you - mildly surprised - back at the platform from which you started.
Next post: Domenico Scarlatti, who would snicker at all the harmony books listed at the top of this post.
Some composers who wrote harmony textbooks:
•Sessions (name-dropped tirelessly by academics but seldom performed anymore)
•Piston (seldom name-dropped- not adventurous enough for current tastes)
•Adler (you have never heard a piece by Adler unless you are the type who buys classical music magazines)
•Persichetti (I've played exactly one piece by Persichetti- a cacophonous thing for wind ensemble with an infuriating scheme for barring the rests)
•Schönberg (please insert your own opinion about Mr. Schönberg)
and, drum roll:
•Jean Philippe Rameau
Rameau's various works on harmony (the one I am reading is the ubiquitous Dover 'Traité de l'harmonie') are the greatest, most bracing approach to understanding tonal harmony and voice-leading I have ever encountered. His stuff is, admittedly, extremely confusing and hard to read. Moreover, he tries - in pure Enlightment fashion - to back up all his theories with the latest discoveries in (not-quite-right pre-Newtonian) science and the works of 'the ancients' (musty whiff of renaissance humanism.) However, even his 'wrong' ideas are so interesting and make so much practical sense that you're glad you've encountered them. Moreover, it offers a snapshot of harmony as it existed at the beginning of the 18th century- up for grabs, so to speak. Nobody wrote the rules on stone-tablets, instead they struggled for guiding principles derived from how everybody was already composing and - this is what is most refreshing for me - acknowledged that they weren't certain.
The Rameau work DeVoto includes in "Mostly Short Pieces" is a little AB keyoard piece (deja vu) called "Le Rappel des oiseaux" - which is, I think, something like "The Calling-Together of the Birds." Within the context of this anthology, it is suddenly more complex in terms of both harmony and melodic figuration than the pieces which preceded it- a dam has burst. Whereas Couperin uses diminished chords as a colorful trick to slide between keys, Rameau uses dissonance in big, thrilling slabs (well, within the context-this isn't Ruggles). It is, in other words, the first example of a fully-realized chromatic style.
Part A is almost entirely in two voices- they spend most of their time on and above the treble staff, frequently brushing against each other and interlocking in their figurations. It is very hard to evoke, in words, exactly how their melodies run- a little mordent figure recurs frequently (presumably the bird call) and each line moves not stepwise (diatonically, Rameau would say) but rather leaps from one chord-tone to another across whichever chord is in play. In this sense, the piece illustrates Rameau's theory that melody arises from harmony. Two sonorities make up the bulk of Part A- a long, long iteration of a i chord (we're in e-minor, incidentally) that calls to mind two birds chattering at each other, and then an equally long, long iteration of a diminished vii chord. From there, we move into a rather dark sequence based on the existing melodic figures- i, VI, a diminished vii-ish, v-ish, dimished ii-ish, then a long stretch of V moving to V iv v VI V i. I say 'ish' of some of the chords because, since the piece exists in two voices, there's some ambiguity about how exactly some of these harmonic sections should be named, although I think I'm pretty accurate about how they function. Moreover, I've glossed over some very dissonant little moments that arise from the voice leading- these inevitably are just passing sonorities before a stronger chord. Rameau is the first composer in this anthology who is almost casual in his use of bitter dissonance to act as a predominant. The diminished ii and vii are used frequently, and illustrate his idea that all such diminished chords are just piled-up thirds from an implied dominant or predominant.
Part B is much more complicated. Rameau launches into it in the unprepared relative major- G major, in this case. There is a long, long chattering iteration of the G major chord, and it then proceeds through a fairly convention progression to further establish the key- I ii V I V ii vi...
But then things get weird. An open fifth of B and F-sharp appears, moving to a V - and then a V7 - of B. So, suddenly we're in B minor- but we've only had one tonic of B minor before it mutates into a dimished vii of A minor, then into something even more diminished-sounding, and then a V of F-sharp - then another diminished chord - then- B major? But just for a couple beats before that D-sharp slides down to a D-natural, putting us back in B minor, which soon embarks on a short progress through all the most dissonant chords of B minor- a dimished ii7, a diminished vii9 and then- sequence. B min to V of A to A min to V of G to G to a C major 7 chord (?!) back to - e minor.
That last paragraph of mine makes for very bad reading because it attempts - and this never works - to explain what was, for Rameau, just an episode of chromaticism. This passage of harmony is all altered tones and subverted resolutions, dazzling and shifting, full of prepared and unprepared dissonances and implied suspensions. Some tricks - like the abrupt step from B major to B minor, seem especially radical, and I think the overall effect was intended to be an Englightment keyboard version of one of those story-themed Disney rollercoaster rides- it starts at a steady speed (to go slowly past the robot forest animals or whatever) but suddenly embarks on a course full of abrupt turns and sick-making drops. And, eventually, it disgorges you - mildly surprised - back at the platform from which you started.
Next post: Domenico Scarlatti, who would snicker at all the harmony books listed at the top of this post.
posted by Trevor Murphy at 3:33 PM
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