Resolution (music)

This article covers the resolution of harmonic tension. For the resolution of clay alteration see resolution characters .

In harmony and counterpoint, resolution refers to both the continuation of a dissonance into a consonance and the progression of a chord into the tonic belonging to it or into a target chord that is required by the altered tones ( leading tones ) of the chord.

Since the dissolution is usually perceived as relaxation, the term dissolution can only meaningfully be applied to music whose principle of progression is based on the alternation of tension (dissonance or dominant ) and relaxation (consonance or tonic), in which a there is a certain compulsion to dissolve tensions. For European music, this applies from the emergence of the major-minor tonality in the late 15th century to its dissolution in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The medieval polyphony knows the resolution in the above. Does not make sense yet , as it is essentially based on the guidance of voices between perfect sounds, which are regulated in their sequence by the cantus prius factus .

The new music on the other hand knows the resolution no longer as only gradual for them between intervals or sounds, not fundamental differences exist. Since the division of sounds into dissonant and consonant is no longer relevant for them, the compulsion to dissolve becomes obsolete.

literature

• Resolution. In: Willibald Gurlitt , Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Ed.): Riemann Music Lexicon. Material part. 12th, completely revised edition. B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1967, p. 62.
• Resolution. In: Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. In 8 volumes. Updated special edition. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 1987, ISBN 3-451-20948-9 , 125 f.