Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-26T09:23:07.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - The rough guide to Shostakovich's harmonic language

from PART IV - Performance, theory, reception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2011

Pauline Fairclough
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
David Fanning
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
Get access

Summary

Points of origin

However diverse the influences on Shostakovich's idiosyncratic harmonic language, and however ambivalent his attitude to the tradition in which he was schooled, he was ineluctably a descendent of the Rimsky-Korsakov school. There is good reason therefore to launch this survey with a paradigmatic example from the master pedagogue, its symbolism forming as much a part of Shostakovich's inheritance as the technical aspect.

The first evidence for the existence of the Devil in Rimsky-Korsakov's Gogol opera Christmas Eve is to be found in bar 6 of the Prelude to Act 1. Here the preceding pattern of major triads descending by thirds (E–C sharp – A–F sharp – D–B–G) would suggest one last fall to E to close the circle of this D major diatonic collection of chord roots. Instead the G falls only to F, which forms a tritone with the still sounding B of the G triad (see Ex. 13.1).

Over the course of the next four acts, numerous tritones will follow as the Devil purloins the moon and stars, cavorts with the witch Solokha, and attempts to catch and then escape from his nemesis, the icon painter Vakula, who has confined him to a burlap sack and ordered that the Devil fly him from Dikanka to St Petersburg and back. In both nocturnal voyages (Act 3, 6th tableau; Act 4, 8th tableau) Rimsky-Korsakov expands the tritone count from one to four. From this he creates passages that evoke the disruptive, nihilistic influence of dark powers by means of rootless diminished- seventh chords and linear segments, in which the four tritones interlock to create the eight-note ‘octatonic’ scale (see Ex. 13.2, where all pitches belong to the scale of semitone–tone alternations upwards from E).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×