A Simple Explanation of the Beginning of Modern Tonality: the Music of Wagner and the Impressionists
A Simple Explanation of the Beginning of Modern Tonality: the Music of Wagner and the Impressionists
Although Wagner’s approach represents a pinnacle of the Romantic style, it also contains all the seeds of modern music. Wagner’s progressive approach to triadic tonality pushed the coherence of that very tonality to its outside limits.
Critical advances are found in Wagner’s treatment of dissonance. Following the lead of composers before him beginning with Beethoven, Wagner typically added thirds above the standard tones of a chord. For example, the G chord consists of the notes, from lowest to highest, G-B-D. As early as the Baroque period, composers emphatically embraced the addition of the seventh to the dominant chord, the note seven notes higher than the G note chord, changing the chord spelling to G-B-D-F. The addition enhanced and intensified the dominant chord as the signal of closure. Beethoven and his contemporaries often added the ninth, the note nine above the root domain, to the dominant, expanding the rich sonority of the chord. The G9 chord is spelled G-B-D-F-A. Although not addressed here, Beethoven also favored in minor keys the use of the Neopolitan sixth, the flatting of the root of the normal inverted ii diminished chord that often precedes the dominant chord in progression. The melody that is created by the use of the Neopolitan sixth is C-D flat-B-C. Note the “half-step circling” of the tonic note C.
Subsequent Romantic composers followed Beethoven lead, adding tones not only to the dominant chord, but also to other chords within the key. The additional tones are dissonant to the basic chord unit, but because they are added in intervals of the third, the biting dissonance and need for immediate resolution are somewhat reduced. In most practice, these additional dissonant notes are resolved to consonant ones.
Wagner routinely abandoned the “correct” resolution of the additional dissonant chord tones. In the resolving the G9 chord as it progresses to the C chord, for example, the standard or “correct” voice movement is given in the chart that follows. In this graph, the chords are given from the lowest to highest voice so that the G and C chord roots are given as the lowest notes. The G9 chord resolves to the C chord.
The “textbook” voicing of the resolution of the G9 chord to the C chord:
A resolves downward the interval of one whole step to G
F resolves downward the interval of one half-step to E
D resolves downward the interval of one whole step to C
B resolves upward the interval of one half-step to C
G resolves upward the interval of a fourth or downward the interval of a fifth to C
In Wagner’s music, standard resolutions such as the one above are replaced by non-standard ones. Wagner often simply did not resolve the dissonant tones, allowing them to sound as dissonant notes over subsequent chords. Sometimes he resolved the dissonant tones, but not until several other chords had been sounded. In these instances, the dissonant note was simply held as a pedal, essentially an upper-voice drone. Another favorite treatment was the resolution of an expanded chord to following chord not normally found in the key. The unusual chord of resolution could come from a key related to the original, or could come from a remote key. Such as case can be exemplified by the motion of the G9 chord to a B flat major seventh chord, a chord not found in the home key of C Major, but derived instead from the parallel minor key of C Minor. Even the use of the B flat major seventh chord is progressive—the addition of the seventh represents a typical Wagnerian practice, the addition of dissonant tones in intervals of the third to chords other than the dominant. The graph follows.
The voicing of the resolution of the G9 chord to the B flat major seventh chord:
A remains stationary on A
F remains stationary on F
D remains stationary on D
B resolves downward the interval of one half-step to B flat
G resolves upward the interval of a third to B flat
In this isolated example, the progression sounds little different from a typical jazz ballad and, indeed, this harmonic sensibility came into American jazz through the music of Debussy and Ravel. When realized by a symphonic orchestra rather than a guitar or piano, the effect is very different. The example is, as noted, given in isolation. Wagner routinely kept several of these dissonances going at once. In addition, he often modulated from one key to another or through several keys very rapidly, undercutting the listener’s tonal footing.
The texture of continuous polyphony served Wagner’s methods because is gave each dissonant note a strong melodic context. The listener follows the melody “out,” so that the melody still makes sense even though the surrounding musical events no longer relate in the traditional ways. This effect is heard clearly in the melodic parts that are sung—they often sound in another tonality than the polyphony spun out in the orchestra.
Wagner’s progressive approach would open critical new avenues of exploration including non-traditional use of traditional materials (as in the music of Debussy), polytonality, atonality, and dodecaphony.
The Second Step Toward Modern Tonality: Negative French Reactions to the Germanic Tradition
Historically, German composers burst unto the international scene and into the position of musical dominance in the high Baroque. Composers such as Handel and Bach were the first to arrive, and the entire Classic period and most of the Romantic era resulted from the realization of German musical thought. German music aggrandized German culture, though not directly or consciously before Wagner. Simply, the quality of the music was so far beyond that of music created elsewhere in
By the second half of the nineteenth century, musicians outside the German-speaking regions began to find the heavy Germanic music traditions oppressive. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) , and to some degree his contemporary Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), reacted by creating a music more representative of their cultural values and priorities. The relationship between art and music is probably at no time more concrete than during the rise of Impressionism. Curiously, Debussy never considered himself an Impressionist although he is put forth by scholars as its primary musical exponent, and he would have rankled at the suggestion.
Despite his self-avowed disassociation with the Impressionist painters, much of Debussy’s music is descriptive. La Mer and
Actually relate to each other.
To create a new musical style, Debussy rejected the Germanic tradition but did not reject its methods, especially those of Richard Wagner. Debussy also embraced traditions and forms that can be traced to the Renaissance. Other influences are also present, and these were the result of influences from
Debussy’s constructive method embraces the motive as the basic building block of melody, the device first established in the music of Vivaldi. Haydn and Beethoven explored the possibilities of motivic structure, and Berlioz, Wagner, Smetana, and others redefined the use of the motive in the symphonic or tone poem and, in Wagner’s case, the leitmotiv of his operas. Debussy’s shorter works for piano are essentially musical sketches in the spirit of Schumann, though there is little musical similarity. The larger symphonic works, such as the aforementioned La Mer and
Debussy’s music also wholeheartedly embraces Wagner’s tonality, though not its application. True to his national character, Debussy was concerned with understanding and exploring the quintessential nature of life as he experienced it. Whereas Wagner used continuous polyphony and advanced chords that stretched the limits to mightily express mighty ideas, Debussy jettisoned the polyphony and evaluated the advanced harmonies for their value of musical color and effect. Wagner relied heavily upon the continuity of melody for coherence as his music cycled through unusual and non-tonal chords and rapid and unstable key changes. Leitmotivs were interwoven for their symbol value.
Debussy instead chose to use the motive as a basic constructive element, as had Vivaldi, Haydn, Beethoven, and others. Debussy couched the motive in the advanced chords of Wagner, but re-evaluated these chords for their capability to move the music forward and to create sound worlds (“environments”) in new, non-traditional ways. Expanded chords are the normative, but traditional voice-leading and resolutions are abandoned. Debussy’s musical textures are dominated by arpeggios, often on harp, and the arpeggios permit the music to flow in gentle fits and starts.
Also in accordance with Wagner’s practice is Debussy’s use of unrelated keys. Debussy’s exploration of key relations went further than Wagner. Whereas the latter had to maintain the logic of his polyphony, Debussy’s methods permitted him to shift almost effortlessly into any key area he chose. Among Debussy’s modulation methods is found the harbinger of modern, twentieth-century tonal logic, and his pieces frequently travel through keys by half-step, a type of travel impossible within the traditional triadic tonal system. A composition, then, might have a tonal scheme of A major>A flat major>A major>B flat major>A major. In addition, Debussy placed his chords in progressions without consideration to their place within a given key, their quality (major or minor) with regard to key, or even to voicing. A particular type of chord motion today common in jazz and American popular music, “planing,” has its origins in Debussy’s music.
Debussy also incorporated influences from outside his immediate culture, most notable among them the use of pentatonic scales. Although the pentatonic scales found in American music have their origins in British folksong, the same pentatonic scales are found globally in all cultures. Debussy also used traditional instruments in new ways, and foremost among these instruments were the harp and percussion instruments. Ravel followed Debussy in his interest in different scales, in particular modal scales from both the
Ravel is regarded, for the purposes of teaching, as an Impressionist but in actuality his explorations were further reaching. Many of his works are less “impressionistic” than those of Debussy, and a significant number are more accurately described as neo-classical. The example on your CDs, “Bolero,” demonstrates this point. The work is little more than a variation set on a two part ostinato. The device comes directly from the Baroque practice. The modern features of the work, however, are the use of the Near Eastern Phyrgian mode in section B and the development of each successive variation not by the creation of different countermelodies or accompaniments, but by the use of different instruments in ever-increasing numbers so that each successive variation is louder than the previous one. The climax is not created by the tradition means of spinning the music to its most remote tonal point, but by piling on new instruments until the work is deafeningly loud.
The “Impressionist” movement in music was short-lived. As radical and new as its methods, the methods were self-limiting. Its creators were absolutely brilliant but also comprehensive, and in their hands their beautiful new music went full cycle from inception to maturity within a single generation and among very few composers. To be sure, the new attitudes toward tonality and its expanded possibilities would serve as an important stepping stone to the truly modern music of the first half of the twentieth century.
posted by Richard Metzger at 7:07 AM
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