Schubert and the Colors of Hierarchy

Franz Schubert was born 221 years ago today.

This video uses different colors to demonstrate the hierarchical embedding of pitch centers -- roots of chords and tonics of scales -- in Schubert's song "Mein!" from Die schöne Müllerin. Relationships between such centers by perfect fifths are indicated by the near-complement relation between colors, and those relationships by step are indicated by colors very similar to one another.

The small dark blue circle toward the right of the thumbnail below is immediately within a purple oval, which is within a red oval, which is within the pastel green oval. This indicates a chord that is a F#°7 chord, which is vii°7 in G minor, a key which is vi in B-flat major, a key which is bVI in the song's key of D major: thus, the chord may be understood as vii°7 / vi / bVI.

After a introduction to the graph, the video synchronizes a scrolling presentation of the graph with a performance by Genaro Mendez, to whom I am very grateful for lending his voice to this little project.