Encounters with the Chromatic Fourth...

or, More on Figurenlehre, 2

Author(s): Peter Williams
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 126, No. 1708 (Jun., 1985), pp. 339-341+343
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/964029
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 Ex. 2
-scene iii: The Window of Appearances, crotchet = 120. Trio
for Akhnaten (countertenor) with his mother Tye (soprano)
and his queen Nefertiti (contralto).
Act 2 scene i: The Temple. The old song of Amon and male
metrical additive - subtractive process reaching at its most chorus (dotted crotchet = 88) followed by the new song of
complex to an elementary chord progression (ex.2). And this Akhnaten, Tye'and male chorus at a faster speed (crotchet
is the entire business of Act 1 scene iii (the homing into = 166).
-scene ii: Akhnaten and Nefertiti, crotchet = 166. Duet.
A minor is characteristic of this score).
-scene iii: The City (Dance), crotchet = 72. Orchestra.
By the standards of Akhnaten this is a relatively simple-scene iv: Hymn, crotchet = 100. Akhnaten's hymn to the
scene; others use longer progressions and less basic chords. sun followed by chorus.
However, the essence is always musical process rather thanAct 3 scene i: The Family, crotchet = 132. Female chorus with
any attempt to tangle with the drama, which must be left superimposed duet, followed by solo for Akhnaten with
very much to the imagination of the producer, except on female voices.

those rare occasions where something is specified in the -scene ii: Attack and Fall, crotchet = 175. Vigorous move-
spoken interjections of the scribe Amenhotep, who is the ment for TBarB trio and full chorus, first in alternation, then

one surviving, though elliptical channel of verbal com- together.

-scene iii: The Ruins, crotchet = 132. Orchestra, returning
munication between the stage and the audience. What hap-
to the harmonic and tempo area of the Prelude to Act 1.
pens in the music meanwhile may be suggested by a brief
-Epilogue, crotchet = 132. Orchestra with trio of Akhnaten,
synopsis: Tye and Nefertiti.
Act 1: Prelude, crotchet- = 132. Orchestra, circling to and from
By this stage it must be clear that the nature of Akhnaten
arpeggios of A minor.
is that of liturgy, not drama. It is presentation, not represen-
Act 1 scene i: Funeral ofAmenhotep III, crotchet = 160. Chant
in two large periods, the first for Aye (bass) with male voices, tation. The questions that remain are still those of inten-
the second for Aye with full chorus. tion, and of whether music that states itself so clearly will
-scene ii: The Coronation of Akhnaten, crotchet = 90. Again allow us to see through to the mythic core, or will rather
in two large sections, for TBarB trio and for chorus. return our bemused stare.

Encounters with the Chromatic Fourth

... or, More on Figurenlehre, 2
Peter Williams

as necessary to suppose Beethoven to have paid attention

Naturally, it is composers, not theorists, who see the poten-
tial of the Chromatic 4th, though the Bach pupil J.P. Kirn-to Mattheson's Der vollkommene Capellmeister of 1739 (as
berger (a learned if not always reliable theorist) had anhas been suggested; Schmitz, 1951) and from it to have learnt
interesting line on it: he used it (see ex.1) to explain howabout the old theorists' figurae: even if he did own a copy
Ex. 1
of the book, this is grossly to overvalue theorists. Nor is
it anything but an unwarrantably speculative leap to think
that Beethoven or any other good composer, in his instru-
it was that some of the chromatic semitones of just intona-
mental music, would use motifs associated with certain
tion (24:25) could be tuned even smaller (243:250) and were
words or ideas in vocal music in order to bring in their
in any case smaller than the diatonic semitone E - F (15:16;
associations: this too is to infer more than can be properly
1771, p.18). He was also right to point out (1776, p.100)
justified.
that the Chromatic 4th (not so called by him) has by nature
As often is the case with musical studies, one is convinced
its main beat on the second and fourth note, descending or
by one's own aperqus but not necessarily by those of others.
ascending: this characteristic is preserved throughout its
Thus I for one do not find very convincing Schmitz's view
history, well beyond Kirnberger. According to Ignaz von
that Beethoven's Piano Sonata op.81a offers, in its opening
Seyfried, Albrechtsberger gave ample attention to strict con-
movement, a fine example of the expressive rising figure
trapuntal harmonization of the Chromatic 4th in up to five
called exclamatio: (ex.2). Certainly J.G. Walther (Praecepta,
parts (1837, ii, 151 - 79), and while his illustrious pupil may
or may not have been interested in such things, he was cer- Ex. 2 Adagio
tainly put through the figural mill, including work on
motivic counterpoint around a subject resembling that of
The Art of Fugue (see Nottebohm, 178- 9). I do not see it p espressivo cresc.

339

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2708) said the minor 6th was an interval characteristic of misleading to think any
this particular gesture or figura, and certainly that sudden anything uniquely signif
high leap is very expressive, particularly in the context of As far as 19th-century m
a sombre Adagio that is itself (to some degree) programmatic. less and less the old Germ
But what are we to suppose? that Beethoven knew of such Italian models); in an ope
a musical 'figure of speech' from books? that he would not to a rising figure, but it
otherwise have found it? that he consciously used something minor 6th! In fact, it is
known to each theorist? that he unconsciously used it and that the rhetoric of such
could not help referring to past and/or present theorists? a rather understated aff
or that theorists merely note what composers have as a lingua or cantata with a sense of
franca, and that composers had to use such ideas before figures' or 'exclamations
theorists could say anything about them? Whatever is the more abstract figures
answer, one can assume that the exclamatio in b.4 of the Chromatic 4th which, th
opening Adagio of op.8 la also characterizes the first sub- texts, was open to imme
ject of the Allegro (NB the repeated note in both: ex.3). Only Mendelssohn might not
now it is not a minor 6th. the orchestra's rush in
Ex. 3 ten. ten. moment intended to be
.L. i" . , ,- -- .
very same motif that the
great aria in Die Zauberf
If one takes a figure overture
like the rising exclamatio
and first choru
ble to think it a basic Chromatic
pattern common to music
4ths, all more
Josquin to at least Boulez, except
example, andthat,
it is as
as music
if he
the interval has become less likely
a work in D to be a 'mer
minor and
Obviously, exclamationes4th. are basic and
E minor, for in the
examp
such old 'figures of musical
tion, and speech'
one willwill still
search
Violin speech'
as old 'figures of poetical Concerto arefortoa liter
tru
period. The broad principles
cess - the of rhetoric
more are
surprisi
human utterance of any period
chromatic or in
passage cultu
the

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341

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 Ex. 6 b.3 ,f
Ex. 8

F-
Di - "'I " di-_F
es i - rae, -r
es i rae, di- - es.
Chromatic 4th (ex.6). Other hints or more-than-hints
l of
, the
- a tempo
V -------------
4th can be heard in other Requiem settings, like the 'Dies
irae' of Saint-Sadns's and the 'Libera me' of Faure's.
Although Requiem settings and other quasi-church works
the run into the finale (ex.8)
might seem particularly well suited to such conservative
4th (if one can use that phrase)
elements, orchestral works too seem to have certain com-
first enters (ex.9).
mon currents not yet recognized to be such. Violin concertos,
Ex. 9
for example, have a curious tendency to the Chromatic 4th a)

at special moments. Sometimes the 4ths are incidental, as

in the harmonization of the 2/4 tune in the coda to Dvof'ak's
Violin Concerto in A minor (Finale: L'istesso tempo) -
though even in such simple passages one might recognize
the old tendency to use the Chromatic 4th at moments of
finality, 'rounding off' movements (see exx.4 and 5 in the
article in last month's MT, p.277). Often, however, the
Chromatic 4th has a particular point to make. The most b) soon " 1
beautiful of these must be that moment just before the
recapitulation of the first movement in Beethoven's Violin
Concerto (ex. 17 in MT July 1979, p.573) when against soft
drums and trumpets the harmony sinks below violin
These are more specific than other chromatic moments
filigrees: from Lassus to Dvof'ak, this must be one of the
most striking instances of the Chromatic 4th. How far later any of those works. While it is true that D minor/major
in
composers had such things at the back of their minds is is the violinist's key par excellence, and that therefore not
impossible to say, since for one thing the figura had beentoo much should be made of the old Mode 1 associations,
common enough in violin music (there are fine instances it is also true that there are 12 chromatics in any key and
in the most famous solo violin piece of all, the Chaconne that the centering of interest on those particular five - A
to D, dominant to tonic - survived well into the 19th cen-
from J.S. Bach's Partita BWV1004). But three later concertos
in particular refer to the Chromatic 4th at important tury by the sheer strength of subtle tradition.
REFERENCES
moments: Brahms's sinrple reference right at the close of
his concerto (ex.7), Tchaikovsky's spun-out rising 4th at
J.P. Kirnberger: Die Kunst des reinen Satzes (Berlin, 1771- 6)
G. Nottebohm: Beethovens Studien (Leipzig and Winterthur, 1873)
Ex. 7 W.W. dim.
Ignaz, Ritter von Seyfried: J. G. Albrechtsbergers sdmmtliche Schriften (Vienna

Kurt von Fischer: Die Beziehungen von Form und Motiv in Beethovens Instrum
werken (Zurich, 1948)
etc. (4 bars to end)
A. Schmitz: review of Von Fischer (above), Acta musicologica, xxiii (1951), 1
1 -,t,. J.G. Walther: Praecepta der musicalischen Composition [MS, Weimar, 1708],
"" ..___ '- - Benary (Leipzig, 1955)

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343

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