[Smt-talk] F-sharp Major
Andrew Schartmann
andrew.schartmann at yale.edu
Mon May 19 07:16:08 PDT 2014
A few works come to mind:
1) Shostakovich's 14th string quartet
2) His prelude and fugue no. 13(?) - anyway, one of them is in that key
3) a scherzo by Balakirev (I don't remember the opus number)
I suspect there are more examples to be found in the Russian music lit.
Good luck with your list,
Andrew Schartmann
On Monday, May 19, 2014, <smt-talk-request at lists.societymusictheory.org>
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: Scale degrees (Nicolas Mee?s)
> 2. Re: Scale degrees (Samarotto, Frank)
> 3. F SHARP MAJOR (Stephen Jablonsky)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 00:01:44 +0200
> From: Nicolas Mee?s <nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be>
> To: Marcel de Velde <marcel at justintonation.com>,
> smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Scale degrees
> Message-ID: <53792DC8.6060505 at scarlet.be>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
>
> The initial question, unless I am mistaken, concerned the use of
> numerals for the bass notes -- more specifically as supporting
> harmonies. Numbering the degrees of the scale is a somewhat different
> matter, but quite interesting nevertheless.
>
> What is interesting here is to see when the numbering (letters of the
> alphabet also may count as numbers) was made to cycle at the octave.
> -- Greek instrumental notation at times made use of the first seven
> letters of the alphabet, repeating the same letters turned around for
> the second (and possibly the third) octave.
> -- Boethius and others made use of alphabets without limitation, i.e.
> without cycling at any interval.
> -- Between Hucbald and the pseudo Odo of Cluny, the notation often was
> tetrachordal, i.e. made use of only four numbers, or letters, or names;
> this is the origin of hexachordal solmisation.
> -- Odo, /c/1100, apparently was the first medieval author to suggest the
> notation with seven letters, cycling at the octave, which is still in
> use today, and which for a long time was in use in parallel with the
> tetrachordal/hexachordal naming of the degrees.
>
> Ramos de Pareja is among those who proposed a solmisation system
> covering the octave, in eight syllables instead of seven, /psal-li-tur
> per vo-ces is-tas/ ("one sings with these syllables"), with /tas/
> denoting the same note as /psal/, but one octave higher (the vowel /a/
> was intended to convey some idea of their identity). Mersenne, I think,
> similarly proposed (among many other systems) /ut re mi fa sol la si
> dut/, where /dut/ denoted that it was the high octave.
> Ramos started from F because that was the normal lower limit of
> organ keyboards by the end of the 15th century, and the normal extension
> of the musical system, one degree lower than the original Gamma of Odo.
> However, he numbers the degrees in various ways, once at least I think
> in the order of the cycle of fiths: 1=F, 2=C, 3=G, 4=D, etc.
>
> The numbering of the degrees of the rule of the octave is similar to
> numbering any scale degree; it obviously concerns the bass, though --
> but not yet the fundamental bass, it does not consider inversions. The
> use of Roman numerals to denote the roots of the chords originates with
> Georg Joseph Vogler, was popularized by Gottfried Weber and became a
> characteristic Viennese technique with Simon Sechter.**
>
> Nicolas Mee?s
> Universit? Paris-Sorbonne (emeritus)
>
>
> Le 16/05/2014 23:16, Marcel de Velde a ?crit :
> >
> > Yes, where to draw the line?
> > I have a copy of Bartolomeo Ramis de Pareia - Musica Practica here
> > from 1482.
> > While he uses a letter system and ut, re, mi fa, sol, la and even a
> > finger bone system to lay out the tones etc. he will also refer to
> > "the third tone" of the scale, or the seventh tone, eight tone
> > (referring to the octave), 14th tone etc. throughout the book. And
> > later in his book he has a diagram of 22 positions where the 1 begins
> > on F.
> > 1 F, 2, G, 3 A, 4 B, 5 c, 6 d, 7 e, 8 f, 9 g, etc where certain tones
> > can be raised or lowered.
> > I don't have any older books, but it seems likely that these kinds of
> > things have been done before that. Boethius or one of the old Greeks?
> > Ramis himself also refers to several old books and tells of how the
> > older theorists held numbers in special regard and linking them to the
> > order of the planets and various other things.
> >
> > Marcel de Velde
> > Zwolle, Netherlands
> > marcel at justintonation.com
> >
> >
> >> Dear Nick et al.,
> >>
> >> Perhaps this is addressing a broader question than Nick originally
> >> asked, but if we are concerned about the earliest uses of numerical
> >> notation to describe the seven notes of the scale (and not
> >> necessarily with attached "functional" meaning or specifically having
> >> to do with rule of the octave harmonizations), then there are earlier
> >> uses than the 18th century.
> >>
> >> The first extensive system that I'm aware of where any note of the
> >> scale could be "1" is in Athanasius Kircher's "Musurgia universalis"
> >> (1650), where Kircher uses the numbers 1-8 (where 8 and 1 are
> >> basically interchangable) to number the notes of the scale in any
> >> mode. He provides tables for his 12-mode system showing how to
> >> convert between the numbers and notes (including common accidentals
> >> in each mode). (See volume II, p. 51.) The accidentals don't make a
> >> lot of sense in some of the modes -- I won't bother to try to explain
> >> what I think he was doing -- but the basic idea of numbering scale
> >> degrees as 1-8 is clearly present. (For example, in many of the
> >> minor-ish modes, he calls for flatting 6 and raising 7.)
> >>
> >> In any case, he uses this system in dozens of tables to illustrate
> >> four-part composition. See, for example:
> >>
> http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/ECHOdocuView?url=%2Fpermanent%2Flibrary%2FWFCRQUZK%2Fpageimg&mode=imagepath&pn=68
> >>
> >> However, Kircher is not the first to use this idea, and I believe
> >> I've seen it in a few earlier Jesuit treatises in particular. For
> >> example, Antoine Parran's "Trait? de la musique th?orique et
> >> pratique" (1639) has examples of his "Pratique de la Composition par
> >> nombres Arithmetiques." He explains it thus: "Pour signifier et
> >> exprimer en chaque partie, Vt, r?, mi, fa, sol, la, nous mettons 1,
> >> 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: et pour monter plus haut adjouterons 7 et puis 8. sera
> >> le Diapason contre l'vnit?" (p. 74).
> >>
> >> See the example from p. 77 in this image:
> >> http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tfm/17th/PARTRA_24GF.gif
> >>
> >> There may also be earlier sources than Parran. But from his
> >> description, he may intend to limit this numerical scheme to notes
> >> corresponding to hexachords beginning on Ut, which would not allow it
> >> to be as movable as Kircher's method (and thus perhaps is not yet as
> >> developed an idea of "scale degree").
> >>
> >> Lastly, I would note that the earliest use of the numbers 1-8 for
> >> anything resembling this idea is probably in Spanish tablature of the
> >> late 1500s and early 1600s (see description and examples in Apel's
> >> notation book). However, I believe this was basically an
> >> octave-repeating system where the "white notes" were simply labeled
> >> 1-8, and other signs were used for octave designations. So these
> >> weren't really "scale degrees," but rather alternative designations
> >> for the notes beginning on C. (But perhaps someone else knows more
> >> about this -- I haven't really looked at these sources.)
> >>
> >> There may have been earlier applications of Roman numerals describing
> >> the scale, but this is the first one I know of which employs Arabic
> >> figures.
> >>
> >> All best,
> >> -John
> >>
> >> ---
> >> John McKay
> >> Assistant Professor
> >> University of South Carolina School of Music
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 10:11 AM, nick at baragwanath.com
> >> <mailto:nick at baragwanath.com> <nick at baragwanath.com
> >> <mailto:nick at baragwanath.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Dear List,
> >>
> >> does anyone know who was the first theorist to number the scale
> >> (especially in the bass) from 1 to 7?
> >>
> >> This is a mainstay of partimento rules, as in 'add a 3rd and a
> >> 5th to the FIRST//of the scale, add a 3rd and a 6th to the
> >> SECONDof the scale, etc.' It remains fundamental to modern
> >> approaches to tonality.
> >>
> >> Although a seven-note scale is implicit in the modal system, in
> >> counting intervals in counterpoint, and in the French seven-note
> >> solfa system, I have not been able to find any occurrences
> >> earlier than about 1750. Numbered scales are commonly found in
> >> late 18th-century sources, such as Fenaroli (1775), Paisiello
> >> (1782), Azopardi (1786), and of course Vogler. But neither A.
> >> Scarlatti nor Durante numbered the notes of the scale. They used
> >> a Guidonian system which is incompatible with the notion of seven
> >> scale degrees.
> >>
> >> Could scale degrees be a late 18th-century invention?
> >> Private responses are welcome.
> >>
> >> Nick Baragwanath
> >> Associate Professor in Music
> >> University of Nottingham
> >> University Park,
> >> Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
> >> nicholas.baragwanath at nottingham.ac.uk
> >> <mailto:nicholas.baragwanath at nottingham.ac.uk>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> John Z. McKay, Ph.D.
> >> Assistant Professor of Music Theory
> >> University of South Carolina School of Music
> >> 813 Assembly Street
> >> Columbia, SC 29208
> >> jmckay at mozart.sc.edu <mailto:jmckay at mozart.sc.edu>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >
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> > Aucun virus trouv? dans ce message.
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 19 May 2014 00:33:14 +0000
> From: "Samarotto, Frank" <fsamarot at indiana.edu>
> To: Stephen Jablonsky <jablonsky at optimum.net>, Joel Lester
> <joellester at aol.com>
> Cc: "vasili.byros at aya.yale.edu" <vasili.byros at aya.yale.edu>,
> "nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be" <nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be>, smt-talk
> smt
> <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Scale degrees
> Message-ID:
> <
> B97B7155C5375F40BDAC9C1D9CCCFF1311B50B5F at IU-MSSG-MBX102.ads.iu.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
> I'll start. Beethoven, Op. 78.
>
> Frank
>
> Frank Samarotto
> Associate Professor of Music
> Jacobs School of Music
> Indiana University Bloomington
> ________________________________
> From: Smt-talk [smt-talk-bounces at lists.societymusictheory.org] on behalf
> of Stephen Jablonsky [jablonsky at optimum.net]
> Sent: Friday, May 16, 2014 5:35 PM
> To: Joel Lester
> Cc: vasili.byros at aya.yale.edu; nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be; smt-talk smt
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Scale degrees
>
>
> Some keys just have not been that popular. I challenge the gang to come up
> with standard repertoire pieces that are in F# major aside from a
> death-defying symphony by Mahler, a nocturne and barcarolle by Chopin, a
> romance by Schumann, and a sonata by Scriabin and Scarlatti, and a book
> called Anthology of Horror in F-sharp Major by Rene David Rivero. And, yes,
> I didn?t forget the WTC which stands alone in the history of music for way
> too many reasons and may prove that Bach was an extra-terrestrial.
>
>
>
> Dr. Stephen Jablonsky, Ph.D.
> Music Department Chair
> The City College of New York
> Shepard Hall Room 72
> New York NY 10031
> (212) 650-7663
> music at ccny.cuny.edu<mailto:music at ccny.cuny.edu>
>
> America's Greatest Chair
> in the low-priced field
>
>
>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 22:38:47 -0400
> From: Stephen Jablonsky <jablonsky at optimum.net>
> To: smt-talk smt <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
> Subject: [Smt-talk] F SHARP MAJOR
> Message-ID: <A31B764E-56A0-4528-9A74-3DEE1C06B166 at optimum.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
>
--
Andrew Schartmann
PhD Student, Yale Department of Music
andrewschartmann.com <http://www.andrewschartmann.com>
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