Passus duriusculus

Carlo Gesualdo used here the passage duriusculus in layers of thirds . In the graphic it is marked with three consecutive red-brown markings.

With passage duriusculus ( lat. The hard / heavy gear ) referred Christoph Bernhard (1628-1692), a musical figure , which he said " stylus communis " associates. It is therefore a typical form of dissonance treatment , as it was common in church and table music as well as in sonatas of the 17th century.

According to Bernhard, a passage duriusculus appears in two ways: First, when a voice “rises or falls a semitonium minus”, that is, moves in chromatic semitone steps. Bernhard demonstrates this with the following example:

The ascending variant of this passage can be found, for example, at the beginning of O sweet, o friendly, o benevolent Herr Jesu Christe ( SWV  285) by Heinrich Schütz . More common, however, is the descending form, especially since it appears as an element of the chromatically diminished lamento bass in numerous compositions from the 17th to 19th centuries, such as B. as ostinato in the Crucifixus of the B minor Mass ( BWV  232) by Johann Sebastian Bach .

Bernhard also speaks of a passage duriusculus when "the passage to the second is too big or too small to the tertie, or too big or too small to the quarta and quinta", which he illustrates with the following examples (bass and numbering added):

In the first of the two examples, there is an excessive second between the notes E flat and F sharp . In the second example arises between the tones it and cis reduced third .

The latter is often found in the literature where (as in Bernhard's example) the lower-aged sixth of the Neapolitan sixth chord is continued in the leading tone .

Sound sample

(See: semitone , with example: Passus duriusculus)

Chords here after WA Mozart: Misericordias Domini , D minor (KV 205 a)

Purely intoned , the diatonic semitones and chromatic semitones (excessive primes) in the bass are the intervals: c → h 112 cents h → b 092 cents b → a 112 cents a → as 71 cents as → g 112 cents

See also

• Cadentia duriuscula
• Saltus duriusculus

Sources and literature (chronological)

• Christoph Bernhard: Tractatus compositionis augmentatus . Ms. ( online edition Bernhard Lang) .
• Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht : On the figure concept of the Musica poetica. In: Archives for Musicology . 16th year, H. 1./2., 1959, pp. 57-69.
• Dietrich Bartel: Musica Poetica. Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London 1997, ISBN 978-0-8032-1276-3 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bernhard: Tractatus , chap. 21st
2. ^ Bernhard: Tractatus , chap. 29
3. ^ Bernhard: Tractatus , chap. 29