Composing Phrase by Phrase 12

The Spanish Inquisition

Hello and welcome or welcome back to the Composing Phrase by Phrase blog! I've been writing a movement for string quartet and it's been bubbling right along. Last week's post went into detail about a phrase that kind of pops out of nowhere, a little melody for the violas that is built from an accompanimental fragment and a motive that will appear in a future melody. This week, I'll get into what follows. And what follows?

No. Not that. This follows.

mms. 50-58

And if you've been following the blog, you'll probably recognize that this phrase looks a lot like this one from a few weeks back.

mms. 17-26

It's not quite the same thing. The similarities first: big chunky chords and double stops built from 7ths; irregular meter; offset rhythmic motives between the two violins and the viola/cello; the return of the "interruption" motif established in the very beginning of the composition.

The similarities are mostly in generalities than in specifics. Harmonically, the first iteration of this phrase idea was grounded by Bb, a nod to the upcoming contrasting section in Bb major. Bb was also used as a tendency tone to draw the phrase section back to A, which was then used to bring us back to D when the opening material returned.

In this case, that harmonic plan could work, but because I want to end up in Bb instead of D, it made more sense to ground the section in something else. That "something else" is a little hard to pin down in this case. There are two notes in particular which is reinforced by the ensemble, and those are A and G

Highlighted A's and G's in the phrase

Not only are the A's and G's doubled by a few instruments, but they appear high in the register played by the violins. The ear naturally gravitates towards higher pitches than lower ones, so this placement of the A's and G's helps center them a bit more in the listener's perception than the rest. They don't just appear in the higher register, though. The cello also plays them down in the bass. It's true that the F# muddies things a little bit, but the reinforcement of the A's and G's in both the high and low registers makes the F# in the bass feel more like a super accent than a functional part of the harmony.

Another reason the A's stand out is because of the second violin's moving motive. Where the viola/cello pair is playing single chords and the first violin is just sitting on it's G/F# double-stops, the second violin features this lead-in to its A/G# double stop:

2nd Violin Lead-In

When something is repeated, it tends to drop to the background of the texture. Novel elements, even if it's a simple bit of movement like what is featured here, will move to the foreground of the listener's attention. This, too, helps reinforce A as a central pitch in the section.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, I have a big picture goal in mind for this phrase. I eventually want to end up in Bb major. There are a bajillion ways to modulate from one key to another, from something as simple as plopping the music in the new key without preparation to some truly subtle harmonic shenanigans. Regardless of the method, the principles are the same - introduce important pitches of the goal key, then use those to shift the harmonic focus from one grounding pitch to another (avoiding the use of "tonic" so as to avoid specific tonal theory baggage).

Other than A and G, one of the other prominent pitches is C natural. Why C natural? Well, without getting too into the weeds, within D major, C# functions as a powerful leading tone back to D. That's the exact opposite of what I want. By neutralizing the C# (naturalizing?), I remove one of the strongest functional markers of D major, thereby allowing an easier shift to the new key center.

How do I introduce the C natural? With the "interruption" motive in the cello and viola.

new interruption motive

So, to recap, the focus on A/G has placed this section on track to move in a different harmonic direction than its first iteration, and the alteration of C# to C-natural is used to help signal a particular goal over other possibilities. We're not out of the modulatory woods yet, but that's a strong start. The bonds of D major have been weakened sufficiently that when the key change does happen, it will feel natural rather than abrupt or jarring. Sometimes you want abrupt and jarring! But not all the time. Probably.

Anyways, I've also included a measure from the next phrase. This measure, too, is a call back to the previous cadential phrase, the rhythmic groove suddenly broken off by the sixteenth note pattern. The A is confirmed as an arrival point by the cello, which sustains the A once the rest of the ensemble goes silent. To be sure, A is also an important pitch for D major. But you know what else A is? It's a tendency tone which leads to Bb. We'll get into how that A will be confirmed as a tendency tone to Bb in the next post. For now, just trust me that that's what it's going to be doing.

Just a few other things I'd like to highlight in this phrase. First, the big chords in the viola/cello parts aren't just big, they're straight up CHONKY. There's really no way to play them pretty, which is exactly the point. It's worth considering how the actual instrumentation of a composition can be used to "create" dynamics. Like, yes, the phrase is marked fortissimo, but the instrumentation practically forces that dynamic, anyways.

Second is this hemiola in measure 57.

m.57 hemiola

If I'm being pedantic, hemiola specifically refers to two rhythmic parts in a 2:3 ratio to each other. While it might be ok to say this measure features a polyrhythm, it's a simple enough (2:5) that I think it's fine to stretch the definition of hemiola a bit in this instance.

This measure is a real "ain't I a stinker?" moment. The fast tempo combined with the shifting meters leading into it will surely take a bit of rehearsal to iron out. However! I didn't just do it for kicks. I mean, I did... but also, it functions as a rhythmic preparation for the cadence that follows. Unfortunately, unlike harmony, Western music theory has little (read: next to none) vocabulary for rhythmic musical elements. I'm not going to do a deep dive into this, but my gut feeling is there are a lot of cadences which have a strong rhythmic build-up followed by a "rhythmic prep" bar that is at a slower rhythm (if not actual tempo) that then ends with the cadence. We just don't have a word for that rhythmic/metric pattern to my knowledge.

That's all for today! Hopefully, you learned something today. If you enjoyed reading, consider subscribing this blog to your RSS feed of choice. If you really enjoyed reading, you can join my Patreon where I feature the audio for the phrases in this blog as well as other compositions which don't get posted here. Either way, thanks for reading!