Dominant (conceptual history)

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The term dominant (French (note) dominante (adj.) Or simply: dominante (noun) from Latin dominans (part. Pre ,. From dominare ), ruling, dominant, predominant ; Italian and Spanish dominante ; English dominant ) was subject to changing meanings in music theory . The term has its origin in the French-speaking music theory in the middle of the 16th century. It originally referred to the recitation tone ( Repercussa ) in psalmodying . Around 1600 it also referred to the fifth level of the modes . It was introduced into German music theory after 1700 and, thanks to Hugo Riemann, has become a term in systematic harmony theory since 1893 . It is still understood that way today.

Origin of the term "dominant"

"Dominant" can only be understood in connection with the development of the key term and is based on the following principles:

Unison music

In the church service, unanimous melodies were initially and are still sung today. A distinction can be made between two types of music performance:

  • improvised text recitation

Liturgical texts (lessons from Bible texts, liturgical words, psalms, etc.) are recited in chanting. The constant pitch on the Repercussa (so-called because of its repetition) is only significantly deviated from at the beginning (intonation) and at the end (differences = different melodic phrases). Different models are used for this. Each line of text is structured by the middle caesura (mediation) for breathing. 8 “tones” (= types of singing) were defined. The pitch of the recitation tone is fixed in notes between the F and the d 'in the pitch of the male voices.

  • Composed music
Modes memorization formulas; unison, composed music

First, unison melodies were written down. The Gregorian chants, composed in unison, are different from the psalmodies based on the final note. In addition, every song usually has a central melody tone (repcussion tone), which is characteristic of the tone (the key, the mode).

Depending on the key, this is a third, a fourth, a fifth or a sixth above the final note (finalis) of the melody. The division is based on the improvised text recitation ( psalm tones) and comprises 8 tones (= church modes ) with the final notes d, e, f and g. The frequently repeated tone (repercussion tone) of the authentic tones (pitch range up to an octave above the final note, exceeding and falling below possible) is a fifth above the finalis d, f, g and a sixth above the finalis e. The repercussion tone of the plagal tones (tone space up to a fifth above the finalis and a fourth below, deviations up and down possible) is a third above the closing tones d and f and a fourth above the closing tones e and g.

Polyphonic music

The key of polyphonic music is determined by the tenor , mostly in the tenor register.

The Swiss polymath Glarean expanded the number of keys by six in his textbook Dodekachordon 1547: there were also two ladders each with the basic tones c, b and a (with authentic and plagal tone space). The scale beginning with b is eliminated due to its lack of a perfect fifth above the root, so that four more keys remain for practice. He substantiates his tenets with some church melodies.

The Italian music theorist Zarlino adopted this expanded number of keys from 1558 ( Le Istitutioni Harmoniche ) and completely dispensed with the representation of the Psalms and Gregorian chant . In every key he treats the notes I, V and III as main notes.

Conceptual basis:

  • within the improvised text recitation

According to Herbert Schneider, Michel de Menehou described the Repercussa as the dominant as early as 1558 ( Nouvelle Instruction ). In 1610, Pierre Maillart found discrepancies between the psalmody and the modes: The latter were used in Glarean and above all in Zarlino to represent (mainly polyphonic) composing. For chronological reasons, the modes should have been derived from the psalm tones. Maillart, who restricts himself to liturgical use, always describes the recitation tone of the psalm tones as "dominant". The middle caesura is called "mediation".

  • for the composed polyphonic music

Adrien Le Roy, Marin Mersenne and his successors transfer the terms dominant and mediation from improvised music to the 12 modes of composed music. In Le Roy (1583), the dominant factor is the fifth level of an authentic or plagal key. For Le Roy, mediation is the finalis of the plagal tones, which is in the middle of the tonal space, which extends to a fifth above the finalis and a fourth below. This understanding of mediation has no successor.

Further approaches: The architect and engineer Salomon de Caus participates in the discourse on the music of his time on the basis of Zarlino's teaching. In 1615 ( institution harmonique ) he rates the fifth above the finalis in the authentic notes as the “dominant” (predominant note); for the plagal tones he chooses the finalis as “dominant”. The first designation agrees with the practice in the theoretical representation of the authentic tones (modes) d, f, and g with the recitation tone of Gregorian chant. The assessment of the other “dominants” is unprecedented and is not taken up by other authors.

Further development of the term key for contemporary polyphonic and instrumental music

1. France

The Jesuit Antoine Parran, teacher of old and new literature, had artistic composition in mind in 1639. Like Maillart, he differentiates the psalm tones from the 12 modes of polyphonic music and considers compositions as a whole: They close with the finalis, there are cadences in the course of a piece ("mediations") that usually go to the third. A special case is the cadence on the dominant, which is the fifth degree outside of the keys with the root e. The parallel setting to the terminology of the psalm tones is obvious.

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers differentiates between “church tones” and modes. - By church tone he understands the pitch-related fixation (determination of the actually sung pitch on the organ keyboard) of the psalm tones; If necessary, the repercussa must be shifted (transposed) according to the pitch of the voice so that it is in the easy-to-sing pitch space. The organist now has a permanent place in the execution of the liturgy: even individual parts of the text can be replaced by music. For this purpose, whole scales are communicated, which refer to already known scales and their transpositions . The relocations necessary for practical use to accompany liturgical chant were first mentioned in Italy in 1614 by Adriano Banchieri .

La Voye Mingot gives up the difference between authentic and plagal in 1656, as does René Ouvrard in 1658. Charles Masson only mentions the major and minor rulers in his composition theory, and Étienne Loulié in 1696 and Michel l'Affilard in 1694 do the same .

In the manuscript by Guillet 1642 and in La Voye Mingot 1656, in addition to the finalis, the dominant and median for the key are decisive. In 1690 Denis Delair summarized the three notes I, V and III of a key as chordes essentielles (= essential strings). This word already appears descriptively in Maillart. In his Lexicon 1703 ( Dictionaire de musique ), Sébastien de Brossard passes on the characteristics that have become concepts.

New names for the other notes of the scale are found: Saint-Lambert calls the Finalis 1707 “la note tonique”, François Campion 1716 qualifies the 7th tone of the scale as “notte sensible”, but understands this more as a characterization than a term . In Brossard's lexicon, the scales are comprehensively communicated as Gregorian (“Modo” / “Tuono”), in the transposition or key order of the chants d'Eglise (church keys or psalm keys, “Tuono”) and the meaning as major and minor tones ("Modo"). In 1718 Dandrieu named the remaining notes of the major and (Doric notated) minor scales in relation to the three main notes: I Finale, II Sufinale (= tone above the finalis), Mediante, IV Soudominante (tone below the dominant), V. Dominant, VI Soudominante, VII Soufinale. Brossard prepares these designations with his interval specifications ("Modo", 10. eg "un Ton plein au-dessous de la Dominante"). Even Brossard speaks of other tones that do not belong to the key, which as "Belles chordes" enriched the scale. Outside the scale, the minor or major third that does not belong to the original scale remains, which Johann Mattheson only incorporates as a peregrin (= remote). At the same point he specifies the additional (chromatic) tones named by Brossard with regard to the major and minor scales and calls them "chordae elegantiores". This extends the key environment to 12 tones that can be determined according to their notation.

2. Germany

In 1711 Johann David Heinichen published the circle of all 12 major and minor keys; In 1713 the Hamburg-based Johann Mattheson represented his own key concept, which ties in with the tradition of the 8 church tones with fixed, real-sounding pitches. It is based on the 8 "church tones" transposed for the organist. The other 16 tones are each grouped in a sequence of twice 8.

Johann Mattheson, in his work The Protected Orchester 1717, communicates Brossard's terms in Latin: The “Chordae essentiales” or “essential Sayten” are “Chorda finalis, chorda dominans & chorda medians”; Added to this are the categories of "naturales" (6th and 7th tone, which he differentiates in the minor according to the direction of movement) and "necessariae" (2nd and 4th tone), taken from French literature. In 1719 he took over the scale representation in his exemplary organist sample without giving his French source for the terms. Dandrieu had chosen the same graphic representation for his further developed terms in 1717.

For the first time in German music theory, the dominant has now also become the fifth level of a major and minor scale . In German-language literature, Johann Gottfried Walther's Musical Lexicon makes the issue accessible to a wider audience.

Reinterpretation: from figured bass to harmony

In addition to the terms “Notte tonique”, “Mediante” and “Dominante” in 1722, Jean Philippe Rameau initially only used the term “notte sensible” exclusively for the seventh tone of the ladder. The latter is often part of the "dominante tonique". In 1726 he opposed the dominant, which is a fifth above the “Notte tonique”, with the “sous-dominant”, which is a fifth below it. In his subsequent writings he no longer pursues the idea of ​​symmetry.

It seems that the term “Dominante” only gradually established itself in the German-speaking area in the second half of the 18th century. In his piano school in 1789 , Daniel Gottlob Türk speaks of the fifth of a scale "as the so-called dominant (which, as it were, rules next to the main tone)". The triad of the first stage is called "tonic". Heinrich Christoph Koch dedicated a separate article to the dominant in his Musical Lexicon in 1802 ; he does not yet name the subdominant as a term. He also travels in his succinct Handwörterbuch 1807. In Musical Conversations Handlexikon of Gustav Schilling (1841) found "dominant", "subdominant" and "tonic" shown scarce. Arrey von Dommer describes the key of the fifth degree, the fifth key, as the "dominant key".

Hugo Riemann describes in the Musik-Lexikon of 1884 that D. is not only mentioned as the fifth note, but "in more recent times also the triad that has its seat on it". He passed on the designations of Rousseau, who followed Dandrieus' view, up to the sixth level and then presented the symmetry of the "subdominant" fac and the "upper dominant" ghd in relation to the tonic ceg. The restriction of harmony to these three sounds and The minor triads dfa, egh and ace, derived from them, appear to him “to be arbitrary and contradict practical musical practice. The concept of the key has therefore been expanded to that of the tonality (...) and the scale appears only as a melodic passage through the notes of a chord with the addition of passage tones. "(Article: major key)

Riemann later names (e.g., 1900 edition) Salomon de Caus 1615 as the earliest author of the term and describes differences in meaning. Its definition is now quite decided: "Dominant is called the fifth of the key, as well as the chord based on it." This definition is also contained in the 9th edition published by Alfred Einstein in 1919. In addition to the reference to Rameau and Johann Friedrich Daube (1756), the following statement is made: “H. In his new harmony designation, Riemann prevents a relapse into the old clusters of names and distinctions by using the first letters of the three functions (T, S, D) as the sole basis. ”The dominant becomes one of the three essential functional harmonies, the tonic (abbreviated T ), Subdominant (abbreviated S) and dominant (abbreviated D) to describe the "logic" of cadence formation. Riemann first used this "functional designation" to encode the harmonies in his work Simplified Harmony (1893) and expanded it into a functional theory .

literature

chronologically

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernhard Meier: Old keys. Depicted on the instrumental music of the 16th and 17th centuries (= Bärenreiter Study Books Music. Vol. 3). Bärenreiter, Kassel et al. 1992, ISBN 3-7618-1053-9 .
  2. ↑ Herbert Schneider: The French composition theory in the first half of the 17th century. 1972, p. 267.
  3. ^ Pierre Maillart: Les Tons. Ov Discovrs, Svr Les Modes De Mvsique Et Les Tons De L'Eglise Et La distinction entre iceux. Esprit, Tournai 1610.
  4. ^ Antoine Parran: Traité de la musique théorique et pratique contenant les préceptes de la composition. Ballard, Paris 1639.
  5. ↑ Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers : Traite de la composition de musque. l'Auteur, Paris 1667.
  6. ↑ Adriano Banchieri : Cartella mvsicale nel canto figurato Fermo, & contrapuncto. Vincenti, Venice 1614, p. 136.
  7. ^ Charles Masson: Nouveau traité des règles pour la composition de la musique. J. Collombat, Paris 1697.
  8. ^ Denis Delair: Traité d'Acompagnement pour le Théorbe et le Clavessin. l'Auteur, Paris 1690, p. 53.
  9. ↑ Michel de Saint-Lambert: Nouveau traité de l'accompagnement du clavecin, de l'orgue et des autres instruments. Ballard, Paris 1707, p. 26.
  10. ^ François Campion: Traité d'accompagnement et de composition. Veuve G. Adam, Paris 1716, p. 9.
  11. ^ Jean-François Dandrieu : Principes de l'Acompagnement du Clavecin. Foucaut, Paris 1718, p. 5.
  12. ^ Sébastien de Brossard : Dictionaire de musique. 6eme edition. Amsterdam, Mortier 1710, (Table alphabétique, “chorde”).
  13. ^ Johann Mattheson : Exemplary organist rehearsal. Kißner, Hamburg 1719, p. 20 .
  14. ↑ Johann David Heinichen (Ed.): Newly invented and thorough instruction [...] To complete learning of the general bass. Schiller, Hamburg 1711.
  15. ^ Johann Mattheson: The newly opened orchestra. Schiller, Hamburg 1713.
  16. ↑ Johann Mattheson: The protected orchestra. Schiller, Hamburg 1717, pp. 420 and 429 and panel XXIII .
  17. ↑ Johann Mattheson: The protected orchestra. Schiller, Hamburg 1717, p. 20 .
  18. ^ Johann Gottfried Walther : Musical Lexicon. Deer, Leipzig 1732, p. 160 f. , (Article: “Chordes essentielles, including the dominant, Chordes naturelles, Chordes necessaires”).
  19. ↑ Jean Philippe Rameau : Traité de l'Harmonie reduite à ses principes naturels. Ballard, Paris 1772.
  20. ^ Jean Philippe Rameau: Nouveau systême de musique théorique. Ballard, Paris 1726, p. 38.
  21. ↑ Daniel Gottlob Türk : piano school or instructions on how to play the piano for teachers and learners. With critical comments. Self-published, Leipzig et al. 1789, p. 62 .
  22. ↑ Daniel Gottlob Türk: piano school or instructions on how to play the piano for teachers and learners. With critical comments. Self-published, Leipzig et al. 1789, (only once) p. 300 .
  23. ^ Heinrich Christoph Koch : Musical Lexicon. 2nd completely revised and enlarged edition of Arrey von Dommer . Mohr, Heidelberg 1865, pp. 86 and 902 .
  24. ↑ Major key. In: Hugo Riemann : Music Lexicon. Theory and history of music, the sound artists of old and new times with details of their works, along with a complete knowledge of the instruments. 2nd, increased edition. Hesse, Leipzig 1884.
  25. ^ Johann Friedrich Daube : General bass in three accords, based on the rules of the old and new authors. Andrä, Frankfurt am Main 1756.
  26. ↑ Function designation. In: Willibald Gurlitt , Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Ed.): Riemann Music Lexicon. Material part. 12th, completely revised edition. B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1967.
  27. ↑ Hugo Riemann: Simplified harmony theory or the theory of the tonal functions of the chords (= Augener's Edition. 9197). Augener et al., London et al. 1893.