# Favorite Time Signatures for Specific Composers



## Bevo (Feb 22, 2015)

I love all the music of Haydn and Mozart, but there is something so wonderful about most of their pieces in 6/8 to me. I just find it so lively, playful, and enjoyable! So I was just curious if there were any specific composers who you particularly love when they write in a certain time? It could Beethoven in common time, Bach in 9/8, Strauss II in 3/4, or any other composer in any other time.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Ferneyhough 70/45


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

violadude said:


> Ferneyhough 70/45


I was thinking of Ian Anderson's forays into 11/8, but I can't top this.

For a more serious answer, I enjoy Handel's gigues, so that would likely be 6/8 also. The weirder time signatures don't seem to have as much impact in classical to me for some reason. They seem to have more impact in other genres where we expect more straight up 4/4. I get a kick out of lopsided rhythms in progressive rock for instance, but I've always been puzzled why 3, 4 and 6 and even 9 to an extent seem natural, while 5, 7, and upwards sound weird. There should be no mathematical or physiological reason for this.


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2015)

violadude said:


> Ferneyhough 70/45


I prefer his earlier, less commercial fare.


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2015)

Weston said:


> I was thinking of Ian Anderson's forays into 11/8, but I can't top this.
> 
> For a more serious answer, I enjoy Handel's gigues, so that would likely be 6/8 also. The weirder time signatures don't seem to have as much impact in classical to me for some reason. They seem to have more impact in other genres where we expect more straight up 4/4. I get a kick out of lopsided rhythms in progressive rock for instance, but I've always been puzzled why 3, 4 and 6 and even 9 to an extent seem natural, while 5, 7, and upwards sound weird. There should be no mathematical or physiological reason for this.


I'm a sucker for "lopsided rhythms" too! They sound unstable in some way, the likes of Egg, VdGG, King Crimson...


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I don't think Ligeti has a favorite. Or at the very least, he keeps changing his mind.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I believe that Johann Strauss II wrote quite a few pieces in 3/4.
I _could_ be mistaken.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't know about Stravinsky's favorite, or even my favorite, but the 11/4 bar in Rite of Spring is a darned good one.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

dogen said:


> I'm a sucker for "lopsided rhythms" too! They sound unstable in some way, the likes of Egg, VdGG, King Crimson...


Seven is a jolly good time . . .


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2015)

Weston said:


> Seven is a jolly good time . . .


Nice! I think that's the one song of theirs I lack.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Weston said:


> I was thinking of Ian Anderson's forays into 11/8, but I can't top this.
> 
> For a more serious answer, I enjoy Handel's gigues, so that would likely be 6/8 also. The weirder time signatures don't seem to have as much impact in classical to me for some reason. They seem to have more impact in other genres where we expect more straight up 4/4. I get a kick out of lopsided rhythms in progressive rock for instance, but *I've always been puzzled why 3, 4 and 6 and even 9 to an extent seem natural, while 5, 7, and upwards sound weird. There should be no mathematical or physiological reason for this.*


I think there are indeed biology-based reasons why duple and triple rhythms feel more "natural" than less symmetrical ones. Nature is full of symmetry, and symmetry is easier to perceive and process mentally. We ourselves are bilaterally symmetrical, we have two legs, amd we walk in duple meter. Triple meters embody a simple, pleasing mathematical ratio, they feel analogous to the stable form of a triangle, and physical movements such as dances in triple meters have an easily coordinated flow and grace. Duple and triple meters are the most comfortable, the least challenging, to mind and body. Music has generally used them because they provide a foundation of stability upon which more irregular rhythmic patterns can be built, much as harmony has used consonant intervals as a stable basis for the exploitation of dissonance.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Don't forget our hearts beat in 3!


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## Tedski (Jul 8, 2015)

Not a time signature, but the "1 - 2 - tri-pl-et" rhythmic sequence seems to be a particular favorite of Bruckner's.


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## Tedski (Jul 8, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Don't forget our hearts beat in 3!


Now you've gone and planted an earworm in my head. :lol:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

violadude said:


> Ferneyhough 70/45


Nancarrow - Study for player piano 41a: (1/√π)/√⅔.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Weston said:


> I was thinking of Ian Anderson's forays into 11/8, but I can't top this.
> 
> For a more serious answer, I enjoy Handel's gigues, so that would likely be 6/8 also. The weirder time signatures don't seem to have as much impact in classical to me for some reason. They seem to have more impact in other genres where we expect more straight up 4/4. I get a kick out of lopsided rhythms in progressive rock for instance, but I've always been puzzled why 3, 4 and 6 and even 9 to an extent seem natural, while 5, 7, and upwards sound weird. There should be no mathematical or physiological reason for this.


Do you feel that Take five sounds weird?
Anyway I guess that familiarity is a big part of that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Don't forget our hearts beat in 3!


And at perfect Viennese waltz tempo.






Strauss was really on to something.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I think a lot of Russians worked really well with 5/4 time signatures, maybe due to their folk music. I was so excited when I finally understood how the rhythm worked in the 2nd movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony. It sounded like a mess when I first heard it but I wasn't used to listening to rhythms in 5 yet. 

The trick for me was paying attention to the woodwinds, they outline the weak beats so I could know where the strong beats fell.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

violadude said:


> I think a lot of Russians worked really well with 5/4 time signatures, maybe due to their folk music. I was so excited when I finally understood how the rhythm worked in the 2nd movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony. It sounded like a mess when I first heard it but I wasn't used to listening to rhythms in 5 yet.
> 
> The trick for me was paying attention to the woodwinds, they outline the weak beats so I could know where the strong beats fell.


Someone described that movement as "a waltz with a limp." I think it's unusual even in Russian music, in that it uses 5/4 at a slow tempo, whereas, I believe, traditional eastern European and Russian folk melodies in 5 tend to be snappy.

I'd be interested in knowing of other pre-20th-century works using irregular meters. There's the final movement of Dohnanyi's Piano Quintet #1, which alternates sections in 5/4 and 3/4 (and, near the end, 4/4 where the theme of the first movement returns):






There's also a striking moment in act 3 of _Tristan_ where Wagner starts alternating 3/4 and 4/4 and finally writes four bars in 5/4:






Rimsky and Mussorgsky used 5/4, and Borodin apparently used 7/4 somewhere. Does anyone know what works these are used in?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Quiz time: What's the earliest post-baroque work written entirely in quintuple time?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Most of Beethoven in 12/8 is heavenly.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> I don't know about Stravinsky's favorite, or even my favorite, but the 11/4 bar in Rite of Spring is a darned good one.


Is there any time signature that _isn't_ used in the _Rite_?

As I glance through my copy of the score (a Dover edition, not the one Bernstein had reconfigured to straighten out the meters), I am amazed at the number of signatures used -- and so much of the score features a new time signature with each new measure. Astounding!

That 11/4 appears shortly after number 103 in the score (page 101 of my Dover edition). The measures on the pages immediate prior (100 and 101), a total of 10 measures preceding the 11/4 measure present the following tempos: 4/4, 6/4, 4/4, 5/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 -- that's seven meters over the course of 10 measures. And so much of the _Rite_ is similarly noted.

At number 142 in the score, "Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen One) -- starting at page 129 in the Dover score -- the signatures read as follows: 3/16, 2/16, 3/16, 2/8, 2/16, 3/16, 2/8, 3/16, 5/16, 2/8, 3/16, 2/8, 5/16 -- and that is through the course of only 17 measures.

In the closing pages of the piece (at number 188 in the score), Stravinsky clarifies some 4/16 meters by putting them in parentheses under which is the non-parentheses 2/8 indication. Oddly he does not use the parentheses for either the adjacent 2/16 or 5/16 meters, though he does add a 1/8 beneath the 2/16. Of course, musicians don't get confused by all this.

At number 41 in the score, during the "Ritual of Abduction", Stravinsky gives us the following for a couple of measures: 9/8 (4/8 + 5/8) -- measures sandwiched between indications of 12/8 and then 6/8.

In one of the more stable passages of the Rite, some 97 or so measures of a steady 2/4 -- pp. 12-20, the famous "Augurs of Spring - Dances of the Young Girls" -- Stravinsky includes some of his boldest syncopations, or off-rhythm accents. It seems the guy just won't make things easy.

I find it fascinating that this most intricately metered score opens with a measure of 4/4, good old "common time", the haunting opening bassoon solo. But it's only one measure. Measure two is 3/4, three is 4/4, four is 2/4, followed by five and six at 3/4, seven at 2/4, eight at 3/4, and nine at 2/4 (and including a fermata!) ... after which we turn to page two ....

There can be no denying Stravinsky's influence upon rhythmic texture in music.

And I love this work. Which possibly explains why I invested in a couple of those _Rite of Spring _box sets that were released for the centennial celebration of the work a couple of years back.









The above is a 20 CD set including all 38 versions ever made of the work from the catalogues of Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Philips.

And this from SONY:








Featuring 10 recordings of the _Rite of Spring _on 10 CDs.

Enough rhythmic madness here to last a lifetime!


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

violadude said:


> I think a lot of Russians worked really well with 5/4 time signatures, maybe due to their folk music. I was so excited when I finally understood how the rhythm worked in the 2nd movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony. It sounded like a mess when I first heard it but I wasn't used to listening to rhythms in 5 yet.
> 
> The trick for me was paying attention to the woodwinds, they outline the weak beats so I could know where the strong beats fell.


Strangely that movement feels like a normal waltz to me when I'm not paying attention and not counting the fives.


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