CHAPTER XI
 
 
 
          TONAL DISSOLUTION:  CONCLUSION
 
 
	Musical %2meaning%1 is conveyed by particular uses of musical
conventions which are either known in advance and apply to a large body
of works, or are learned in the course of an individual work itself.
Evolution seems to be able to push forward the "known" conventions only
to a certain point -- then a revolution is necessary to make the final
break into an area where fresh nuances of expression are possible.
Try as they may, however, revolutionaries are never able to make a
complete break with their past.  Their most important accomplishment
is that they bring to the fore a reassessment of older values.  The
radical shift of emphasis seems to the casual observer like a complete
rejection of the status quo.  Indeed, at %2the%1 moment$$The length of
this "moment" depends on many factors -- especially the talents of the
individuals directly involved.$ of revolution a certain amount of chaos
seems to exist.  In this brief time it is common to find experimental
probes in every direction that seem to have little relation to each
other beyond the fact that they, in some striking fashion, are all
%2unlike%1 the immediate past.  This is an especially difficult time
for the most gifted composers, because their audience cannot yet be
expected to have assimilated the significant elements of the musical
re-evaluation which these composers are guiding.  However, it is
inevitable (just so long as the new music %2is%1 actually performed)
that a "revolutionary" composer's audience will gradually become aware
of the salient features of the new style.  This is true because the
individual members of the audience are, after all, a part of the same
general musical culture as is the composer.  The %2bases%1 of his
musical thought, no matter what his creativity might add, are common 
to all the sophisticated members of his society.

	Many musicians have felt that the seeds of tonal dissolution
were present in the basic premises of functional harmony.  Once such
a form of tonality came into general use, the inherent possibilities
of significant relationships between tonalities were brought to the
fore.  The only convincing means of moving from tonic to tonic is
through the introduction of functional chromaticism.  But this process
is both constructive and destructive.  It establishes or emphasizes
new tonal centers and, in so doing, naturally undermines old ones.
Most often in tonal music the chromaticism is so applied as to throw
the balance strongly in the constructive direction.  That is, the new
tonics are supplementary in nature (even when the result of modulation)
and serve as massive elaboration of one basic tonic.  Already in the
middle of the 19th century, however, the midpoint of this balance was
being approached.  Without a great deal of motivic unity and the frequent
use of harmonic sequences, some of the music of that time might truly
have been as chaotic as a few o the contemporary critics believed it
to be.  As more and more dramatic harmonic relationships were sought,
the more apparent it was that tonality, as the all-important unifying
force, was becoming inadequate.  The tonal center shifted so soon
and so often that it no longer provided a useful point of departure;
or (and even more important) the linear elements began to be combined
in such a manner as to create constant doubt concerning a specific
harmonic function at any given point.  As motivic values increased in
importance, the distinctions between functional versus non-functional
chromaticism and chord versus non-chord notes became arbitrary.  The
%2implications%1 of tonality replaced the %2reality%1 of tonality.
If new music was to retain its vitality, nothing was left at this point
but to call upon a new basic unifying concept.  The word "contextuality"
seems best to describe this concept as it exists in music that
is truly of the 20th century.

	To greatly over-simplify the case, it might be said that the
early composers of this new music generally embarked on one of two
main routes.  These might be characterized by the terms "diatonicism"
and "chromaticism".$$By the middle of the 20th century, the distinctions
between these two types of composers were well on the way toward
vanishing.$  The "diatonic" composers (often of the "French" school)
tended to use unaltered tonal scales and chords built on thirds as 
their materials.  Chromaticism existed mainly in terms of juxtapositions
or combinations of diatonic units (polytonality), and although there
were many %2references%1 to functional harmony, the %2particular uses%1
of the overall material were clearly the most important bases of unity.
$$For very good examples of this style, see the piano pieces, %2Saudades
do Brasil%2, written by Darius Milhaud in the early 1920s.$  The
"chromatic" composers (mainly of the "German" school), on the other
hand, developed the idea of the freely existing %2motive%1.  The lines
containing such motives often resembled late 19th-century lines, but
when put in combination with one another, there was little pretense of
underlying chords built on thirds which might give clear definition to
specific tonic areas.  Any chord structure could be used
just so long as it had motivic value or proved to be no more than the
vertical result of several significant lines.  Here again, the %2use%1
of the material -- the %2context%1 -- was the main basis of organization.

	With the aid of examples from Musorgsky's %2Boris Godounov%1
(1874) and Wagner's %2Parsifal%1 (1882), we shall discuss some of the
problems which must be faced when analyzing the music which made these
early 20th-century "schools" possible.  Then we will conclude with the
discussion of excerpts from music representative of the end of tonal
evolution:  Debussy's %2Preludes for Piano%1 (c.1908) and the
%2Kammersymphonie%1, Op.9, (1906) of Schoenberg.

←←←←←←←←←←←

	The greatly increased dramatic (in the literary sense) use of
music in the second half of the 19th century was a primary factor in
the rapid demise of functional harmony.  In the following excerpt from
%2Boris%1, Musorgsky creates "dream" music by at first avoiding the
clear "reality" of specific harmonic function.  There is also much
"tone painting" apart from the functional element.  The %2stepwise%1
staccato quarter-notes = a "long ... staircase".  The ascending
triads = "led me to a tower".  The low, rolling notes = "the crowd
(below) ... thronged the square".  The staccato sixteenths = "mocking
laughter".

Example


	The staccato scale lines (bars 1-3, 4-5) fit in well with the
pseudo-modal procedures established from the beginning of the opera.
However, there are no direct functional relationships among the chords
which accompany these scales.  Unless one considers the lowering of
the leading tone as non-functional chromaticism (and there is no
particular reason for doing so here), there are no pivot chords.  Thus,
because of the whole step motion down from the root, each of these major
chords after the first one are most easily heard as dominant in function.
Note the tritone relations between the third of each chord and its
following weak-beat quarter-note.  But since the harmony does not return
to the point from whence it came, the resulting third relations lose
significance as elements which can contribute to any particular basic
tonic.  The sequential nature of the passage makes its "form" easy to
grasp in %2spite%1 of the constant moving on to new places which tends
to negate the functional relationships.  In the following analysis of the 
first five bars, a basic tonic on the highest level seems superfluous
and so is omitted.  Control tonics are listed at the end points of the
phrase units, since they stand out in special relief.  At bar 4 we 
return to a #=I=# in the middle ground because we begin again from
an already heard chord.

Figure

	At bar 6 it might be ventured that the "dream" begins to
become a "reality" for Gregory.  Here the functions are much clearer.
But as Gregory's narration reaches the description of the mocking of
the crowd, "reality" once more disintegrates -- into a chord structure
with a whole-tone potential.  The chord for bars 10 and 11 may be taken
as C-E-G%4S%1, with D and F%4S%1 as appoggiaturas.  One function this
chord can have is Vs of the a minor chord which comes in bar 14.
This notion gets some support from the fact that there are no bass
notes between the low E in bar 12 and the A-E fifth of bar 14.  The
functional connection between the augmented chord and the previous
music is quite weak.  With the enharmonic alteration of all flatted
notes in bar 9 we have chords which, with a charitable outlook, could
be considered as tonicizing the dominant of #=a=#.

Figure

	On the other hand, it is more reasonable to take the F%4F%1 of
bar 9 as a chromatic passing note in an area which has strong
orientation toward #=b=#%4F%1.  Then if we reverse our position on bar 10
and take E-G%4S%1 as neighboring notes to D-F%4S%1, the chord for 
that bar may be read enharmonically A%4F%1-C-E%4FF%1-G%4F%1, or the
altered dominant of #=D=#%4F%1.  This is useful, since #=D=#%4F%1 is
the control tonic which appeared at the end of Figure zzz.  The
elements of the possible #=a=# control tonic appear directly below
the analysis of the #=D=#%4F%1 functions.  #=C=# becomes a new
and independent control tonic at the end of the excerpt.

Figure

	The ambiguity of many of the progressions in this excerpt
makes possible the derivation of many other dubious functions.  It
should be clear that the primary basis of organization in this
passage is hardly any longer functional harmony.  In the first five bars
the %2pattern of third relations%1 seems ascendent.  The particular
temporary tonics and their relationship to any basic tonic are
important only in that they continually lead %2away%1 from the
possibility of a simple functional return to the point of departure.
In bars 6 to 15 the %2interval of the third%1 is handled in a
broader fashion.  The bass at first descends by thirds, the fourth
leap being reserved for the phrase ending.  The highest part spans
the third A%4F%1-C twice, the C persisting as a pedal point from
bar 8 through to its tonic role at the end.  However, the fact that
chords such as those of the excerpt %2usually%1 do have functional
significance (and Musorgsky's audience certainly assumed this
intuitively) contributes greatly to the effect of the passage.

-------------------

	In %2Parsifal%1, Wagner has extended the technique of functional
ambiguity which we have studied in connection with %2Tristan und Isolde%1.
In our coming example from the opening of the Third Act of %2Parsifal%1,
we are placed in almost continual doubt as to the specific role of each
note.  It is the rule rather than the exception that notes may be heard
as both chord and non-chord tones at once.  Especially noticeable are
the long suspensions whose relative consonance often forms
independent chords with distant functions.  The very slow tempo leaves us
lingering on these "non-chord" chords, so that it is quite possible to
lose entirely the sense of harmonic direction.  And when we come to
know the music well enough to maintain our harmonic orientation, we
realize that the specific functions are hardly important and that
ultimately our sense of direction is preserved rather by our
understanding of the particular means of handling the functional 
ambiguity.  The first analyses given below (Figure zzz) is based on the
slowest possible harmonic rhythm that may be heard in this music.
The functions given are those of the chords at the various points of
resolution.  It is only by studying the whole example carefully that
we can feel sure about just where the points of resolution really 
fall.  We are reasonably safe in assuming that all of Wagner's
functional chords will be based on thirds.  In addition, we must
realize that our diatonic-based system of notation is outmoded for
music like this and that enharmonic equivalence must always be taken
into consideration.  Proceeding with these things in mind, we see that,
from the broad point of view, the essential harmony changes no more
quickly than the time of a half-note -- and sometimes even more slowly
than that.  In the second measure, the leap in the bass makes both
parts of the tritone stand out as chord notes, the preceding G%4F%1(=F%4S%1)
being an upward-resolving suspension.  The soprano's E-F-B%4F%1 work
the same way, the pattern of half-note harmony with quarter-note
overall movement thereby being well established.
	  In two spots, the
traditions regarding leaps away from non-chord tones are stretched
somewhat.  At bars 5 and 8 the diminished octave skip in the bass
almost leads one to hear both notes of the interval as chord tones.
Then the chord formed by the suspensions above the low half-notes
would seem to have functional significance (see second analysis, 
Figure zzz).  However, when the upper three notes resolve, it becomes
clear that, in the largest sense, the diminished octave was merely
a displaced chromatic scale movement and that the substitution of a
sharp on the first note in each case (E%4F%1=D%4S%1, F=E%4S%1) would
make this clear -- to the eye at least.  These spots are further 
complicated because they represent a change in the manner of dealing
with this pattern of long note moving to a short note on the next
degree, followed by a leap.  But when studying the music in terms
of most of the detail (Figure zzz), it is seen that several 
interpretations of this pattern are possible.

Example

Figure

	Figure zzz sets forth the main elements of a possible interpretation
which is perhaps obscured by the details in the other two analyses.
The analysis in Figure zzz does not really give a clear
picture of how this music is finally heard.  If all these 
contrapuntally-achieved chords were really taken as functional harmony,
the music would be very difficult to follow in the tonal sense.  However,
once the "Wagnerian method" is understood, the factors shown in
Figures zzza and zzzb stand out in their proper relief.

	These examples from Musorgsky and Wagner have shown us two
methods by which functional ambiguity may be created.  Something
of both methods were found in each example, but with Musorgsky it
was mainly a case of rapidly juxtaposing triads which contained
incompatible chromaticism and supported no single tonic.  With
Wagner it was mainly a case of using chromatic  counterpoint in such a way as
to give little hint in the details about the specific structure of
many chords -- thereby keeping most of the functions in doubt.

--------------------

	Almost all of Debussy's music is truly tonal, but in his later
works there are many areas which no longer depend on harmonic functions
for their basis of organization.  It is rare, however, that Debussy
transcends tonality by means of extending the "Wagnerian method" 
(although, in his own way, he uses the "method" a great deal -- as,
for example, in the opening section of %2The Afternoon of a Faune%1).
When tonality is dispensed with in his work, it is usually by 
means of presenting successions of functionally unrelated chords,
or by such means as his occasional use of the whole-tone scale,
wherein the "roots" of the various chords employed have significance
only in their contextual sense. In the first four bars of the 
following passage, the B%4F%1 chord is the %2contextual%1 rather than
the %2tonal%1 center.  Roman numerals could be applied to the various 
parallel-moving chords, but they would have no meaning in the sense
that they have been used up to now.  Harmony produced by exact
parallelism is almost always non-functional (see pages zzz-zzz).
In this Prelude the music continues after our example with B%4F%1 as
a true tonal center.

Example   .  Debussy, Prelude I (...Danseuses de Delphes)
			(11 bars from the end)



	In Debussy's %2Prelude II%1, functional tonality plays no more
than a distantly associative role.  All of this work, except for five
pentatonic measures, is based on a single whole-tone scale, used so as
to establish a contextual center of C-E with a low B%4F%1 in support.

Example   .  Debussy, Prelude II (...Voiles)
		(first 6 bars, last 2 bars)

---------------

	With Schoenberg the situation is reversed.  Almost all the 
music he wrote in his last forty-five years (1906-1951) is outside the
realm of functional tonality.  But his beginnings were firmly rooted
in the "Wagnerian method",  as evidenced by the example on page zzz
from his %2Kammersymphonie%1 (1906), composed when he was a young man.
An entire book could be written on the amazing extension of tonality
found in this piece.  The given example is one of the "simpler" parts
of the work and yet there could be many alternative interpretations
add to the analysis offered.
	 Picking out which of the notes are 
chord tones is frequently problematical (e.g., see bars 10-11 of the
example).
Sometimes the harmony changes before a chord built on thirds can
appear;$$Note also the "fourth" chord at the beginning of the work,
etc.$ at bars 5 and 6 the chords containing unresolved or "frozen"
accessory tones could be explained as 11th chords.  However, there
is so much of this kind of thing that the make-up of the chords is
often obscured.  Example zzz gives a possible chordal condensation
of the music.  Many of the specific decisions in this matter are
arbitrary.  When playing over the music, the ear sometimes seems to
tell you two things at once.  Much of the chromaticism present is in
terms of appoggiaturas and traditional major-minor alterations
(non-functional).  Especially prevalent is chromaticism in terms
of augmenting and diminishing the fifth of dominant-function chords.
This latter situation produces a chord with a whole-tone potential
which has a far greater ambiguity than even the diminished seventh
chord.


Example

	In fact, when a whole-tone chord is found in highly chromatic
surroundings, the ambiguity is total.  Considered as a doubly
altered dominant ninth chord, any of a whole-tone chord's six notes
can be the root.  Or considered as an extended form of augmented
sixth chord, it may resolve to any of six dominants. 6+6=12!  The
role of chromaticism in a whole-tone chord is left in doubt until
other parts of the progression are heard.  When the progression offers
nothing to clarify this role, then the chord can have no tonal
function.  This point is almost reached in the example under study.

Example    .  Schoenberg, Kammersymphonie, Op.9


Figure

	In measure 1, the A major %4A%1 chord is probably best called
a Vs -- although such substitute functions cannot be assumed
as surely here as with earlier music.  The F%4S%1 may be taken to
change the function or it may be taken as an added sixth, a "frozen"
accessory tone.  In older music, the effect of the added sixth 
appears often with non-tonic chords (e.g., II%4B%1=IV+6, VII%4B%1=II+6,
III%4B%1=V+6, or V%4Z%1, etc.), but it is not until the late 
19th century that the %2tonic%1 with the added sixth is used as a
relatively stable chord.  A similar problem occurs with the E (major
or minor∞ chord in bar 11.

	The functions of detail (there are several possible
interpretations) in bars 1 and 2 seem weak in comparison to the
slower, main harmonic movements, and so are placed in parentheses.
In bar 2 the possible (even probable) dominant or G%46%1 function
of the chord is not immediately realized, so the C%4N%1 may be
heard as the lower neighboring note to C%4S%1 (see also page zzz).
There is no sure way of ascertaining the functions in bars 5 and 6.
The A%4F%1-D%4F%1 progression may be heard as #=D=#%4F%1: V-I
almost as easily as #=A=#%4F%1: I-IV.  This latter interpretation
seems best, however, since #=A=#%4F%1 is closer to #=E=#%4F%1, the
altered dominant of which appears in bars 4 and 7.  The cadence from
bar 7 to bar 8 (and at the end) is reminiscent of that noted in
Schubert's %2Piano Sonata%1 in A (see page zzz).  The tendency
toward the subdominant is unmistakable, although in a texture as 
rich as Schoenberg's, the presence of a lowered seventh in a tonic
(or any other) chord does not necessarily influence its function.
(This is just one more bit of ambiguity.)  However, the subdominant
tendency is also an important element in the over-all design of the
entire work; the first of the largest formal units opens in #=E=#,
moves finally to #=A=#, and then closes there.  (It is curious to note
that this same interval relationship plays an important part in
Schoenberg's twelve-tone works.)

	The designation of temporary tonics in bars 9 to 11 is highly
arbitrary.  The highest melodic line seems to have a #=d=# 
quality, but the other voices form harmonies, most of which are only
indirectly related to #=d=#.  Perhaps a main source of ambiguity
in this fragment is the large number of whole-tone-potential chords
(marked x in the analysis).  They all can be derived from the same
whole-tone scale and thus are all possible dominant functions to
#=A=# ... or #=B=# (or could they be augmented sixth chords in
#=D=#∞  However, because of their vertical positions, some of the
forms of this whole-tone chord can be heard quite readily as dominants
of #=E=#%4F%1 or #=G=#.  After listening to the example several
times, it is possible to hear as an important relationship the 
movement of #=A=#-#=E=#%4%F%1-#=A=#, wherein the #=E=#%4F%1
is the %4F$1II of #=D=#; or in functional terms, #=A=#  ###SEE BOOK###.
In bar 4 the dominant of #=E=#%4F%1 (or is it A%46%1 of #=D=#∞
grows out of #=f=#%4S%1 (or is the melodic D%4S%1 more than an added
sixth∞, but the melodic line in the following bars emphasizes the
#=D=#-#=A=# relationship almost in spite of the harmony.


	It is significant that #=E=#%4F%1 somehow seems linked with #=D=# in
this excerpt.  As pointed out earlier, a direct tritone relationship
between two tonics is difficult to achieve in any functional sense (see
page 46).  In order to bring about this relationship, even indirectly, a
rather complex texture is necessary.  (Conversely, the simplest way to
ensure "atonality" is through the liberal use of tritones.)  However, as
the texture increases in complexity, the relative value of tonal functions
in the music decreases and what was a %2means%1 (the context) of 
clarifying and elaborating the functions becomes an %2end%1 (replacing
tonality).

	While it is true that there is much 20th-century music in the
new idiom which uses chords built on thirds and which even has an 
occasional functional progression, it is generally worse than useless
to analyze this music from a tonal point of view.  Almost any
relationships can be gleaned from any such music, but how valuable
are answers (even right ones) when the questions are wrong?  Even
music such as that of the Schoenberg example might better be analyzed
in contextual terms -- a basic element of the context being ambiguous
tonal references based on chords whose specific constitution is
frequently unclear.  Procedures for the analysis of contextual music will
not likely become fully developed until composers have finally explored,
in their intuitive manner, all the most fruitful potentials of this
basis of organization.  However, in the tonal music which stylistically
precedes the 20th century, the application of the principles of analysis 
here set forth should give the musician a clear understanding of the
harmonic role of each sound structure in the musical continuum.  The
primary purpose of this study is to increase the awareness of just what
particular progressions within the tonal conventions produce what
%2musical%1 effects on the individual.  It must again be emphasized
that tonal music is made up of a great deal more than harmony alone,
but all else is essentially rhythmic and melodic elaboration of the
functional harmonic relationships.  It is mainly by means of the
great variety and subtlety of these relationships that this music is
able to express such a wide range of human emotions.
 
.NEXT PAGE
.nofill indent 0

Exercises for Chapter XI.


	Analyze the following works.  Show alternatives in     
	ambiguous passages.

	1.  Chausson, L'Aveu (Song), Op.13,#3

	2.  Franck, String Quartet, Introduction to
					first movement.

	3.  Debussy, L'Apres-midi d'un faune
		(This could be made into several projects.)

	4.  Debussy, Preludes, Book I,      
			#IV (... "Les sons ... du soir")

	5.  Ravel, Valses nobles et sentimentales,
					#VIII (Epilogue)

	6.  Strauss, Fruehlingsfeier (Song), Op.56,#5.

	7.  Berg, Dem Schmerz sein Recht (Song), Op.2,#1

	8.  Schoenberg, Verklaerte Nacht, from 5 bars before P
			('cello melody) to 1 bar before R.
 
	7.  Scriabin, Poeme, Op.69,#1