[Smt-talk] Caution versus Generalization

[Ildar Khannanov]

Dear Nicolas and the list,
 
I find it very difficult to perceive that Riemann has been insensitive to directionality in tonal music. Au contraire, he was one of two (with Rameau) who suggested a superstructure, something above and behind the notes, which would drive music in time. How else could you explain that dominant triad SHOULD resolve to tonic triad? Are there any ideas beyond tonal-harmonic functionality that could explain this simple yet mysterious phenomenon?
 
Made-up concepts, such as "syntax" which should unfold only in one direction, are just that -- made-up things. Who would ban the Subdominant-to-Tonic motion as functional and syntactic?
 
As for Erpf and Riemann--they both agreed with Rameau who called the upper fifth dominant and the lower fifth sous-dominant. This is the topic for the freshmen at the conservatory. The only one who did not understand that subdominant is located a fifth below tonic was Heinrich, who obsessively interpreted the subdominant note as an adjacency to dominant on every so-called voice leading graph. 
 
Ildar Khannanov
Peabody Institute
Johns Hopkins University
solfeggio7 at yahoo.com
 

________________________________
 From: Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be>
To: Dave Headlam <dheadlam at esm.rochester.edu> 
Cc: "smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org" <smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org> 
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 3:59 PM
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Caution versus Generalization
  


I think so too, even if perhaps in different terms.

On the one hand, it is true that Erpf, reviving 18th-century
      theories that the 7th of the dominant chord actually is the
      subdominant degree (Rameau, d'Alembert, and more specifically
      perhaps Jean Adam Serre), appears to reduce the opposition between
      dominant and subdominant. It is in that sense that V11, even more
      than V7, combines a bottom D and an upper S.

On the other hand I think that Erpf is more sensible than Riemann ever was to the direction of the movement. There is something strange in the fact that Riemann opposes I–IV–I movements, on one hand, to I–V–I movements on the other hand, while there seems to be an obvious analogy between I–IV and V–I on the one hand, IV–I and I–V on the other hand. 

All this may be considered to weaken the opposition between dominant
    and subdominant functions. I don't think it really does. But
    certainly it does not "repudiate" any of them.

Nicolas Meeùs
Université Paris-Sorbonne



 
Le 29/08/2013 16:14, Dave Headlam a écrit :
 
Frank et al -- There's some nuance to be added here.  Dan's text (p. 309) states that "First, he [ Erpf] remakes harmonic function from a three-termed into a two-termed dualism--in other words, from a conception of a central T and two lateral areas, S and D, to one involving an 'on' Tonic state and an 'off' non-Tonic state.  Although both traditional Subdominant and Dominant categories are retained, they are now the two basic aspects of the non-Tonic state . . . "   Dan goes on to show Erpf's indications for the "off" state differentiate S from D and major from minor, and that Erpf's examples show elements of "both Dominants" ("Doppeldominanten") within chords, such as a "V11" chord combining a bottom D and upper S:  G-B-D-F-A-C.  
>
>Dave Headlam
>  
 
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