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    Rachmaninoff's Subdominant

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    vhrr21
    This document summarizes a presentation given by Ellen Bakulina at the virtual meeting of the South Central Society for Music Theory in February 2021. The presentation examined Rachmaninoff's subdominant chord and its role in his music based on theories of harmonic function. It discussed how the chord can be understood as functionally mixed, provided examples of its use from works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and analyzed its role in modulating between relative keys and providing background plagal motions.

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    Rachmaninoff's Subdominant

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    vhrr21
    84 views26 pages
    This document summarizes a presentation given by Ellen Bakulina at the virtual meeting of the South Central Society for Music Theory in February 2021. The presentation examined Rachmaninoff's subdominant chord and its role in his music based on theories of harmonic function. It discussed how the chord can be understood as functionally mixed, provided examples of its use from works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and analyzed its role in modulating between relative keys and providing background plagal motions.

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    Rachmaninoff’s Subdominant

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    This document summarizes a presentation given by Ellen Bakulina at the virtual meeting of the South Central Society for Music Theory in February 2021. The presentation examined Rachmaninoff's subdominant chord and its role in his music based on theories of harmonic function. It discussed how the chord can be understood as functionally mixed, provided examples of its use from works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and analyzed its role in modulating between relative keys and providing background plagal motions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    84 views26 pages

    Rachmaninoff's Subdominant

    Uploaded by

    vhrr21
    This document summarizes a presentation given by Ellen Bakulina at the virtual meeting of the South Central Society for Music Theory in February 2021. The presentation examined Rachmaninoff's subdominant chord and its role in his music based on theories of harmonic function. It discussed how the chord can be understood as functionally mixed, provided examples of its use from works by Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky, and analyzed its role in modulating between relative keys and providing background plagal motions.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 26

    Rachmaninoff’s

    Subdominant
    Presented at the virtual meeting of the
    South Central Society for Music Theory
    February 2021

    Ellen Bakulina, PhD


    University of North Texas
    [email protected]
    Rachmaninoff’s harmony
    (Рахманиновская гармония ), later
    renamed “Rachmaninoff’s
    subdominant,” as described by Viktor
    Berkov (1960)
    Goals:

    1. Contextualize Rachmaninoff’s chord in modern theories of


    harmonic function as a functionally mixed harmony
    2. Show the chord’s role on larger levels of structure
    3. Relate the chord to tonal pairing and broad-scale plagalism
    Rachmaninoff’s subdominant resolving
    to I and to V: some common
    contrapuntal options
    Part 1: Some modern theories of harmonic function
    Daniel Harrison (1994):
    - Scale degrees are understood as bearers of harmonic function
    - Root = functional base; third = functional agent; fifth = functional associate
    - Functional agents: chordal thirds of the three central triads (T, S, D)
    tonic agent: 3/b3 (mi/me); dominant agent: 7/#7 (ti); subdominant agent: b6 (le)

    Kevin Swinden (2005):


    - SD: subdominant chord with a dominant element (e.g., dominant agent)
    - DPD: dominant-reparation chord with a dominant element
    - DS: dominant chord with a subdominant element
    Tchaikovsky. Overture Romeo and
    Juliet (1872).
    Rachmaninoff’s subdominant as
    a functionally mixed chord
    Rachmaninoff. “Loneliness (“Fragment
    from Musset”), op. 21 no. 6 (1902),
    mm. 6-7. R-S and R-DP
    Rachmaninoff. “Loneliness,” mm. 6-7.
    Voice-leading graph. R-S locally
    prolongs the tonic, R-DP serves as the
    pre-dominant chord within the phrase
    “Loneliness,” complete graph.
    Rachmaninoff
    Prelude in C#
    minor, op. 3 no. 2
    (1892).

    A summary of
    progressions that
    accompany the
    le-so-do
    ostinato
    Part 2: Rachmaninoff’s chord and the pairing of relative keys

    Mutability (peremennost’, ladovaia peremennost’):


    Russian term approximately corresponding to the concepts of
    tonal pairing and directional tonality

    Opera Aleko, 1892. One act, libretto by Vladimir Nemirovich-


    Danchenko, based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin.
    Rachmaninoff’s subdominant as
    a modulatory pivot
    Rachmaninoff. Prelude in G# minor,
    op. 32 no. 12.

    R-S as an enharmonic pivot


    Rachmaninoff. Aleko, Old Man’s Story.
    Summary of progressions with
    Rachmaninoff’s chord
    Old Man’s Story. Form

    (interpreted as a small ternary, A-B-A)


    Old Man’s Story
    Initial phrase

    (Piano reduction
    by Bakulina)
    Old Man’s Story
    Final phrase.

    “Ghost pivot”
    circled
    Part 3: Rachmaninoff’s subdominant and background plagalism
    Rachmaninoff. “O Stay My Love,”

    op. 4 no. 1 (1892). Form


    “O Stay My Love.” Motivic material:
    Focal phrase and basic idea
    “O Stay My Love”

    Mm. 6-22, voice-


    leading graph
    “O Stay My Love”

    Mm. 24-34, voice-


    leading graph

    This corresponds to
    the song’s overall
    structure.

    Notice the plagal


    background,
    I-IV-I
    Lori Burns
    (1995).
    Exs. 14, 32, 32

    Plagal
    Background
    structures for
    Phrygian
    chorales
    Suggested plagal background
    progressions. An alternative to
    Schenker’s authentic background
    progressions,
    Free Composition, fig. 16
    Bibliography

    Bakulina, Ellen. 2020. “Tonal Pairing in Two of Rachmaninoff’s Songs.” In Analytical Approaches
    to Twentieth-Century Russian Music, edited by Inessa Bazayev and Christopher Segall.
    New York: Routledge.
    Burns, Lori Anne. 1995. Bach’s Modal Chorales. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press.
    Berkov, Viktor. 1960. “Rakhmaninovskaia garmoniia.” (Rachmaninoff’s Harmony.) Sovetskaia
    muzyka, no. 8: 35–43.
    Cohn, Richard. 2012. Audacious Euphony: Chromatic Harmony and The Triad’s Second Nature.
    Oxford University Press.
    Dubovsky, Iosif, Sergei Evseev, Igor Sposobin, and Vladimir Sokolov. 1987 (Reprint of the Fourth
    edition, 1955). Uchebnik Garmonii [Harmony Textbook], commonly known as Brigadnyi
    Uchebnik [The Brigade Textbook]. Moscow: Muzyka.
    Ewell, Philipp. “Harmonic Functionalism in Russian Music Theory: A Primer” Forthcoming in
    Theoria
    Harrison, Daniel. 1994. Harmonic function in chromatic music: a renewed dualist theory and an
    account of its precedents. University of Chicago Press.
    Kinderman, William, and Harald Krebs. 1996. The Second Practice of Nineteenth-Century
    Tonality. University of Nebraska Press.
    Schenker, Heinrich. Free Composition: Volume III of new musical theories and fantasies.
    Pendragon Press, 2001.
    Swinden, Kevin. 2005. "When functions collide: aspects of plural function in chromatic
    music." Music Theory Spectrum 27/2: 249-282.

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