Contents

Music in the Nineteenth Century

NEW CYCLES

Chapter:
CHAPTER 2 The Music Trance
Source:
MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Author(s):
Richard Taruskin

The alternative harmonic routes—cycles of thirds and semitones—could also function by themselves, liberated (as it were) from the dominance of the cycle of fifths, and herein lay the most profoundly subversive potential of Schubertian (and post-Schubertian) harmony. As often happens, what begins as a representational artifice can exert an independent fascination as a technical device; an expressive means can become an end in itself, pursued for the sheer pleasure of the entrancing patterns it makes available. As we have already glimpsed fleetingly in the Impromptu in E♭, op. 90, no. 2, there was a tendency to intensify the emotionally charged flat-submediant relationship by embodying it in sequences, giving the flat submediant a flat submediant of its own. The G-major harmony in m. 100 of the Impromptu (Ex. 2-5a) stands in the same relationship to the key of the middle section as does the key of the middle section to the key of the outer sections. The three keys, in fact, could be placed in an “interval cycle” similar to the circle of fifths, that is, a sequence of moves by identical intervals that continues until the point of departure is regained: E♭–C♭/B–G–E♭

Citation (MLA):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 The Music Trance." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-002009.xml>.
Citation (APA):
Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 2 The Music Trance. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 7 Feb. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-002009.xml
Citation (Chicago):
Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 2 The Music Trance." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 7 Feb. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-002009.xml
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