A Night at the Semi-Opera
No. 7 Henry Purcell "Air in D Minor" from "The Indian Queen"
DeVoto's last bit of Purcell in this anthology is a tune from "The Indian Queen," a work that he calls in his preface paragraph a "semi-opera" (he uses quotes, too). Lamentably, this does not mean an opera about enormous cargo trucks (in the vein of 'Starlight Express') but rather a stage work that looks an awful lot like opera - and was probably indistinguishable from opera to its contemporaries - but which we frown at now for having too little singing, too much talking, and more dancing than seems appropriate. After all, if you're going to hire opera singers, you may as well program a work in which they're singing all the time.
(Reader- I will try not to do anymore pun-type jokes like the 'semi' thing. It is insulting to you and degrading to me.)
It's strange how baroque opera seems so intensely stylized and inorganic after 300 years. Opera is, of course, by its very nature a big glob of artifice, but the simplistic (by our ultra-chromatic post-Debussian standards) harmony and forms of baroque opera have come to seem especially terse and abstract. These operas are still very enjoyable, but you can't escape the feeling that the emotions intended by the composer have petrified into cliches. There are exceptions (mostly laments- Dido's, Theseus's) but most baroque opera music has calcified with time to become not opera but what we would call 'absolute music.'
This "Air in D minor" is, like almost all the pieces we've looked at so far, in a simple binary form. There's an A section (repeat) and then a B section (repeat optional, I suppose, according to whether they've wheeled in the new stage scenery yet). It is, for the most part, in two voices (although the soprano is occasionally filled out with a fully voiced triad or a series of notes moving in parallel thirds). An eighth-note pulse keeps the piece moving perpetually, and the bass moves in counterpoint to the melody at all times rather than sitting on half notes or something. The bass alternates between contrary motion to the melody and (if the melody is resting on a cadential note) arpeggios to fill out a chord.
Harmonically, this air is an example of what DeVoto calls 'bifocal tonality,' which is to say a situation where 'relative minor and major alternate regularly and serve with approximately equal importance.' Somebody felt that situation needed a particular name, even though I would argue that the condition of major/minor mixture is more or less implicit to the minor mode. I suppose they felt it necessary to differentiate this situation from music that stays glumly minor for bar after bar without touching on III or VI chords to confuse the matter.
Section A is, overall, in D minor. You get Is and dominant V(sharp)s and iv and v (ish) sections, but also a prominant III to let you know that we're by no means estranged from cousin F major. And, sure enough, the B section is almost completely in F major- Purcell doesn't feel a need to modulate into it, he just launches on F and gives it a pretty thorough fleshing out- I V vi ii I IV V I and so forth. The last four bars move back into D abruptly, although there is a certain interesting ambiguity about whether we're in F major or D minor (largely because the textures are contrapuntal rather than block chords)- we're left with implied V of Fs and VI (IV of F) chords, along with a couple minor vs in alternation with i's leading to the final V(sharp) I candence.
So, how does this harmony feel when you hear it? I would have to say - and it's hard to put my finger on why - modal. The tune (hummable, with a weighty swing) is what comes out above all- there's no question that the melody is the most important aspect of this piece, and the harmony exists only to support it. The alternation of major and minor gives it an antique sensibility- the mixture makes the music seem less goal-oriented than later tonal music. This is because, I would say, we're so used to stepwise melodies moving firmly towards or away from a particular lodestone- it feels a little odd when harmony behind one shifts to the major mid-phrase. Also, I should point out that this type mixture of major and minor sounds, by nature, very dramatic and adventurous when thumped out in these martial rhythms. It sounds like: '(minor chord) Peril! (major chord) And chance of fortune! (minor chord) But so perilous!'
And, with that, we wave our handkerchiefs at Purcell for the time being. Next post: Couperin, another gentleman who saw fit to have his portrait painted in a big shiny robe.
DeVoto's last bit of Purcell in this anthology is a tune from "The Indian Queen," a work that he calls in his preface paragraph a "semi-opera" (he uses quotes, too). Lamentably, this does not mean an opera about enormous cargo trucks (in the vein of 'Starlight Express') but rather a stage work that looks an awful lot like opera - and was probably indistinguishable from opera to its contemporaries - but which we frown at now for having too little singing, too much talking, and more dancing than seems appropriate. After all, if you're going to hire opera singers, you may as well program a work in which they're singing all the time.
(Reader- I will try not to do anymore pun-type jokes like the 'semi' thing. It is insulting to you and degrading to me.)
It's strange how baroque opera seems so intensely stylized and inorganic after 300 years. Opera is, of course, by its very nature a big glob of artifice, but the simplistic (by our ultra-chromatic post-Debussian standards) harmony and forms of baroque opera have come to seem especially terse and abstract. These operas are still very enjoyable, but you can't escape the feeling that the emotions intended by the composer have petrified into cliches. There are exceptions (mostly laments- Dido's, Theseus's) but most baroque opera music has calcified with time to become not opera but what we would call 'absolute music.'
This "Air in D minor" is, like almost all the pieces we've looked at so far, in a simple binary form. There's an A section (repeat) and then a B section (repeat optional, I suppose, according to whether they've wheeled in the new stage scenery yet). It is, for the most part, in two voices (although the soprano is occasionally filled out with a fully voiced triad or a series of notes moving in parallel thirds). An eighth-note pulse keeps the piece moving perpetually, and the bass moves in counterpoint to the melody at all times rather than sitting on half notes or something. The bass alternates between contrary motion to the melody and (if the melody is resting on a cadential note) arpeggios to fill out a chord.
Harmonically, this air is an example of what DeVoto calls 'bifocal tonality,' which is to say a situation where 'relative minor and major alternate regularly and serve with approximately equal importance.' Somebody felt that situation needed a particular name, even though I would argue that the condition of major/minor mixture is more or less implicit to the minor mode. I suppose they felt it necessary to differentiate this situation from music that stays glumly minor for bar after bar without touching on III or VI chords to confuse the matter.
Section A is, overall, in D minor. You get Is and dominant V(sharp)s and iv and v (ish) sections, but also a prominant III to let you know that we're by no means estranged from cousin F major. And, sure enough, the B section is almost completely in F major- Purcell doesn't feel a need to modulate into it, he just launches on F and gives it a pretty thorough fleshing out- I V vi ii I IV V I and so forth. The last four bars move back into D abruptly, although there is a certain interesting ambiguity about whether we're in F major or D minor (largely because the textures are contrapuntal rather than block chords)- we're left with implied V of Fs and VI (IV of F) chords, along with a couple minor vs in alternation with i's leading to the final V(sharp) I candence.
So, how does this harmony feel when you hear it? I would have to say - and it's hard to put my finger on why - modal. The tune (hummable, with a weighty swing) is what comes out above all- there's no question that the melody is the most important aspect of this piece, and the harmony exists only to support it. The alternation of major and minor gives it an antique sensibility- the mixture makes the music seem less goal-oriented than later tonal music. This is because, I would say, we're so used to stepwise melodies moving firmly towards or away from a particular lodestone- it feels a little odd when harmony behind one shifts to the major mid-phrase. Also, I should point out that this type mixture of major and minor sounds, by nature, very dramatic and adventurous when thumped out in these martial rhythms. It sounds like: '(minor chord) Peril! (major chord) And chance of fortune! (minor chord) But so perilous!'
And, with that, we wave our handkerchiefs at Purcell for the time being. Next post: Couperin, another gentleman who saw fit to have his portrait painted in a big shiny robe.
posted by Trevor Murphy at 11:26 AM
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