Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Verdi Under the Radar

The innovative-chromatic-harmony radar that musicians bring to their hearing of nineteenth-century opera tends to ping more often with the music of Wagner than of that of his contemporary Verdi. However, I like to think of some of Verdi’s innovations as more stealthy than showy.

Take this cadence-ending treble line.


It’s not too hard to imagine this bass line, with an implied Neapolitan chord, underneath it.


Now take this cadence-ending bass line.


It’s not too hard to imagine this treble line, with an implied secondary dominant, above it.


By themselves, these lines imply staples of chromatic harmony. But toward the end of a chorus from La forza del destino ("Nella guerra, รจ la follia"), Verdi puts them together.


On the one hand, Verdi puts a root-position G-major chord in C-sharp minor music: ping! On the other hand, the stylistically normal soprano and bass lines -- enharmonics aside -- fly right by, sotto il radar. Viva Verdi indeed.

2 comments:

  1. It is as though a major triad built over scale-degree raised 4 (F double-sharp, notated enharmonically) replaces the more normative viio7/V built over the same bass note. Does a G major triad have other repercussions in this chorus or opera?

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Poundie. Curious how this very consonant and functionally clear substitution -- a vii°7/V or a Neapolitan sixth is replaced by a "Milanese" diminished sixth -- didn't take off. (Verdi does something similar for a cadence in a similar dance in Act II of Aida -- "Danze Di Piccoli Schiavi Mori" -- but I don't know any others.) I don't know of any such repercussions -- I'll leave it to others to explore this question!

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