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Reber, in this treatise of 287 pages, writes the word
"sous-dominante" only four or five times in all:<br>
– p. 5, when he describes the names of the degrees of the scale. It
may be noted that he names the sixth degree "sus-dominante ou
sous-sensible", i.e. referring it either to the dominant or to the
"sensible", certainly not to the tonic. The name "submediant" is
unknown in French (or was until recently).<br>
– p. 12, where he says (a) that the tonique, the dominante and the
sous-dominante are good notes to be doubled in harmony, and (b) that
they form the "bonnes notes" of the key.<br>
– p. 19, where he writes: "By associating the fourth degree to the
two preceeding ones (the first and the fifth), the tonal effect is
complete, as the set of the chords of these three degrees include
all the notes of the scale, as can be verified by disposing these
chords as follows:" (a figure shows the chords a fifth apart and
labels them respectively "domin.", "tonique." and "sous-dom.")<br>
– p. 41, where he describes the plagal cadence. "It consists in the
chord of the 4th degree (sous-dominante) either in fundamental
position or inverted, followed by the chord of the tonic;".<br>
After that, the subdominant is not mentioned anymore. And it is by
no means true that Reber explains it as "a reflection of the
dominante".<br>
<br>
It is striking that, in more than half these few cases, the word is
associated with the expression "4th degree"; it may be reminded here
that Fétis never uses the word "sous-dominante" and always speaks of
"the 4th degree". I take this to be characteristic of 19th-century
French treatises, where the subdominant is hardly considered. There
is at most a vague reminiscence of the arrangement of the three
chords forming just intonation, and that's it.<br>
As to the French teachers of harmony being "proud of Rameau",
they explicitly claimed to the contrary. Catel's treatise was chosen
against the Ramists; Fétis derides Boely's "Les véritables causes de
l'ignorance" as being written in the defense of Rameau; Berton
(1814) and Dourlen (1838) nominally criticize the errors of Rameau.
I can agree that the French teachers of harmony were more Ramist
than they were conscious of; but they certainly were no "proud"
Ramists.<br>
<br>
Cordialement,<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr">nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Le 25/02/2012 22:37, Ildar Khannanov a écrit :
<blockquote
cite="mid:1330205874.41370.YahooMailNeo@web45015.mail.sp1.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255,
255); font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;
font-size: 12pt;">[...]
<div><span></span> <span>I wend to our library and found Traite
d'Harmonie by Henri Reber, professor of theory at Paris
conservatoire, published in 1862. On page 19 I have found an
excellent musical examle and thorough explanation of
sous-dominante as the scale step a p.5 below tonic, as a
reflection of the dominante. I cannot be sure that all
French treatises on harmony had this same explanation, but I
have found two more conservatoire textbooks which followed,
accroding to their introduction, M. Reber's treatise. By the
way, Reber begins with the derivation of harmony from the
corps sonore, just as Fetis some twenty years before. I have
a strange feeling that, contrary to Dr. Meeus' attempt,
French teachers of harmony were proud of Rameau's
achevements and used them extensively in their pedagogic
practice.</span></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
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