# How does Prokofiev make dissonance so beautiful?



## Samuel Kristopher (Nov 4, 2015)

I love many of Prokofiev's works, but I imagine I stand with many Prokofievites in loving his holy trinity of the first three piano concertos the most. 

It'd be possible to talk for hours about all the moments and nuances about these works, but something I found myself discussing with my fiancee this morning was how even his dissonances are strikingly beautiful. 

Now of course "beauty" is a subjective thing, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this, especially from a theoretical point of view. Has anyone else noticed this? Or am I asking a silly question?


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

His music is tuneful. Even when dissonant.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

With oodles and oodles of talent, you can make almost anything sound great. Prokofiev had those oodles.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

While I think your question is probably pretty subjective, I too think Prokofiev was exceptionally good at making dissonance beautiful, but according to my tastes Bach and Ravel were even more effective at this. All three are among my favorites. 

How? Maybe it does have something to do with the music being tuneful, but I'm not really certain. This is the kind of thing many spend a lifetime studying composition attempting to understand.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

tdc said:


> While I think your question is probably pretty subjective, I too think Prokofiev was exceptionally good at making dissonance beautiful, but according to my tastes Bach and Ravel were even more effective at this. All three are among my favorites.
> 
> How? Maybe it does have something to do with the music being tuneful, but I'm not really certain. This is the kind of thing many spend a lifetime studying composition attempting to understand.


I second this :tiphat:


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

A lot of colorful, beautiful chords are dissonant. Chopin is chock-full of dissonance. How dissonance sounds just depends on how you use it.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Prokofiev--the Mozart of the twentieth century. An aggressive, muscular Mozart, to be sure, but there are many parallels; three being the shared flow of melodies, the sheer volume of output, and the range of output. But I'm with the OP: those fabulous first three piano concertos....


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

There's nothing that says dissonance is ugly. Most find music that is completely devoid of dissonance to be sterile-sounding (pretty much the only thing in this category is early minimalism).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How? The intangible called "genius".


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I really like the 4th and 5th piano concertos too, which are sadly underrated .


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Samuel Kristopher said:


> I love many of Prokofiev's works, but I imagine I stand with many Prokofievites in loving his holy trinity of the first three piano concertos the most.
> 
> It'd be possible to talk for hours about all the moments and nuances about these works, but something I found myself discussing with my fiancee this morning was how even his dissonances are strikingly beautiful.
> 
> Now of course "beauty" is a subjective thing, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this, especially from a theoretical point of view. Has anyone else noticed this? Or am I asking a silly question?


You are not asking a silly question. You are asking a question that requires a book-length response, since Prokofiev did this in many different ways in different contexts. Now if you narrowed it down to a few choice examples, you might have a chance of getting a more specific answer.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I don't know, but after hearing an especially clangorous performance of the 2nd Piano Concerto (by Gerghiev and some Russian bricklayer), I was surprised by finding myself missing what I would call the strange lyricism of the piece.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

MarkW said:


> I don't know, but after hearing an especially clangorous performance of the 2nd Piano Concerto (by Gerghiev and some Russian bricklayer), I was surprised by finding myself missing what I would call the strange lyricism of the piece.


I have the Krainev/Kitaenko on Teldec; they manage the lyricism well IMO, and Krainev provides plenty of clangor when clangor is called for.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: If any of us knew, we'd all be doing it.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

_"Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper."_ - Prokofiev

Also...

_"I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my structural purposes."_

May that give some insight into his aesthetic views...


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

For some reason, the first 8 chords of his Symphony-Concerto get stuck in my head a lot. Striking, unapologetic. Love that work!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

He built his harmony using a web of related dissonance that give the illusion of tonality.


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## Adam Weber (Apr 9, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> He built his harmony using a web of related dissonance that give the illusion of tonality.


Huh?


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## smoledman (Feb 6, 2012)

All I know is that once you wrap your head around the dissonance it unlocks a different way of listening to music. You don't just go straight from a Mozart sonata to Prokofiev. There is Beethoven and Chopin to guide you there.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Tonality is a perceptual phenomenon, so the phrase "illusion of tonality" doesn't make sense.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

I make no comment on how one considers something "dissonant" versus another, versus a critic, versus a learned individual, etc.

But I do say: Does Prokofiev _make_ the dissonance sound beautiful to you, or is it just that _dissonance is beautiful_. It is sound, different sounding sound!


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## smoledman (Feb 6, 2012)

Don't forget the role the fantastic musicians have in faithfully reproducing Prokofiev's scores. I think Vladimir Ashkenazy does the Prokofiev concerti justice. It's not to say that Russians do Prokofiev the best, but they certainly don't ever disappoint.


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## chromatic owl (Jan 4, 2017)

I think good voice-leading is the key to everything in harmony. Chromatic voice-leading includes an infinite variety of chord progressions that sound convincing (=beautiful) while being extremely dissonant. Parallel voice-leading can also lead to beautiful dissonance. Furthermore, a very common technique is the suspension of originally consonant notes into very dissonant harmonies. One of my favourite examples is the introduction of the 2nd suite from 'Romeo and Juliet'. For instance, the brass section plays a solo theme following by rather simple cadencial chords from the orchestra. But because all the notes are sustained until the final resolution it sounds incredibly beautiful.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Prokofiev was a master of colour, texture, and his rhythms were always interesting (i think of a wind up toy for some reason).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Prokofiev? Dissonant? I really hadn't noticed. He's as "mainstream" as can be.


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## chromatic owl (Jan 4, 2017)

hpowders said:


> Prokofiev? Dissonant? I really hadn't noticed. He's as "mainstream" as can be.


???????????????????


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: It's that illusive, abstract, unexplainable concept called "genius".

If we could explain it, we would all be doing it.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

The use of dissonance goes back a long way (as some posts have pointed out). I was listening to some Monteverdi on the radio yesterday (BB3 Composer of the Week - catch it on I-player) and there were heaps of 'modern-sounding' dissonances there .... and he was being criticised for it during his lifetime ... yet it sounded wonderful.

as others have said, 'dissonance' can sound beautiful


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

Samuel Kristopher said:


> I love many of Prokofiev's works, but I imagine I stand with many Prokofievites in loving his holy trinity of the first three piano concertos the most.
> 
> It'd be possible to talk for hours about all the moments and nuances about these works, but something I found myself discussing with my fiancee this morning was how even his dissonances are strikingly beautiful.
> 
> Now of course "beauty" is a subjective thing, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this, especially from a theoretical point of view. Has anyone else noticed this? Or am I asking a silly question?


Because it's not dissonance; it's close-voiced harmony.


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

Avey said:


> I make no comment on how one considers something "dissonant" versus another, versus a critic, versus a learned individual, etc.
> 
> But I do say: Does Prokofiev _make_ the dissonance sound beautiful to you, or is it just that _dissonance is beautiful_. It is sound, different sounding sound!


Absolutely. This.......................


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

smoledman said:


> All I know is that *once you wrap your head around the dissonance it unlocks a different way of listening to music*. You don't just go straight from a Mozart sonata to Prokofiev. There is Beethoven and Chopin to guide you there.


Accent added by me, but 100% agree.


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## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

This is the response I had originally begun for this thread, but gave it its own thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/49209-dissonance-harmony.html


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

As suggested above, I think Samuel Kristopher's question is a great one, but it likely has a multitude of answers - maybe as many as there are beautiful passages to explain. But I'd like to address one of my favorites, from the third movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no. 6, focusing on just three measures, mm. 5-7 (quoted in the musical example below).

The dissonances in question are the last note of m. 5, D natural, and its successor, the C# on the first beat of m. 6. What makes these dissonances poignant and graceful is the way they cut against the harmony. In these measures Prokofiev twice slides from a D major triad down to C# major and back, a change that has no real harmonic meaning. This kind of "side-slipping" motion, a well recognized aspect of Prokofiev's style, would never occur in a classical or romantic sonata. The line with the dissonances in the right hand counteracts the side-slipping - when the chord (and the top melody line) slide up from C# major to D major, the dissonant notes go in the opposite direction, from D down to C# (the C# immediately resolves up to D). The weird symmetry of this is beautiful in itself. Weirder still is that the harsh dissonances don't evoke tense feelings or conflict, but seem piquantly sympathetic to the main melody above, almost like biting caresses, if that makes any sense.

There is another layer of context that makes the dissonance in the passage especially telling, but it is too much to go into here. But, briefly: the only meaningful long-term motion in these three measures is that the F#s of mm. 5 and 6 eventually fall to F natural on the last beat of m. 7, a shift from D major to D minor coloration. The way the E#s in the right hand presage the final F is brilliant (note that E# and F are the same pitch, just with a different meaning in context.) The E#s by their nature must go up and their eventual echo in the relaxed F natural is a tremendously subtle shift. Prokofiev's ability to extract every ounce of feeling from such subtle changes is at the heart of what makes his dissonances beautiful. He ornately decorated subtle folds in tonal space that were impossible or invisible to earlier composers, even while staying within a traditional triadic vocabulary.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

I can't give you any theoretical view on this. I can only say that I absolutely love his piano concertos (much more then Beethovens')

And concerning your remark on dissonance I can say that in his third piano concerto, the 2 end-chords (with flutes and oboes I think) of his Thema con variazioni which he repeats after every variation I find absolutely beautiful. I'm not sure if it can be seen as a dissonant. It's rare that just a chord gets such a prominent place in music, I mean not just backing up a melody but just being a musical entity on it's own. Almost as if these 2 chords are a theme on their own. It makes me think a bit of the opening chords of Beethovens' 1st symphony.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> As suggested above, I think Samuel Kristopher's question is a great one, but it likely has a multitude of answers - maybe as many as there are beautiful passages to explain. But I'd like to address one of my favorites, from the third movement of Prokofiev's Piano Sonata no. 6, focusing on just three measures, mm. 5-7 (quoted in the musical example below).
> 
> The dissonances in question are the last note of m. 5, D natural, and its successor, the C# on the first beat of m. 6. What makes these dissonances poignant and graceful is the way they cut against the harmony. In these measures Prokofiev twice slides from a D major triad down to C# major and back, a change that has no real harmonic meaning. *This kind of "side-slipping" motion, a well recognized aspect of Prokofiev's style, would never occur in a classical or romantic sonata.* The line with the dissonances in the right hand counteracts the side-slipping - when the chord (and the top melody line) slide up from C# major to D major, the dissonant notes go in the opposite direction, from D down to C# (the C# immediately resolves up to D). The weird symmetry of this is beautiful in itself. Weirder still is that the harsh dissonances don't evoke tense feelings or conflict, but seem piquantly sympathetic to the main melody above, almost like biting caresses, if that makes any sense.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this very detailed analysis! I agree with most of it, but I'm not quite convinced by your statement that "this kind of 'side-slipping' motion, a well recognized aspect of Prokofiev's style, would never occur in a classical or romantic sonata." To me, this "side-slipping" seems to be very much in the classical tradition. It strikes me as a neighbor note motion, where each of the chord tones (A D F#) moves to its chromatic lower neighbor and then, in the next measure, back again to the original chord.

This use of neighboring tones seems consistent with the approach in, for example, the opening theme in the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in A Major, K. 331. Even though the neighbor notes in the Mozart example are diatonic rather than chromatic, the voice-leading seems similar, in that a dissonant chord arises through neighbor-note motion. Therefore, at least in this particular passage by Prokofiev, I would say that his treatment of dissonance is very much in line with late 18th-century practice, in which chromatic tones are often treated - and resolved - as neighbor-note decorations of the tonic harmony.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Bettina said:


> Thanks for this very detailed analysis! I agree with most of it, but I'm not quite convinced by your statement that "this kind of 'side-slipping' motion, a well recognized aspect of Prokofiev's style, would never occur in a classical or romantic sonata." To me, this "side-slipping" seems to be very much in the classical tradition. It strikes me as a neighbor note motion, where each of the chord tones (A D F#) moves to its chromatic lower neighbor and then, in the next measure, back again to the original chord.
> 
> This use of neighboring tones seems consistent with the approach in, for example, the opening theme in the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in A Major, K. 331. Even though the neighbor notes in the Mozart example are diatonic rather than chromatic, the voice-leading seems similar, in that a dissonant chord arises through neighbor-note motion. Therefore, at least in this particular passage by Prokofiev, I would say that his treatment of dissonance is very much in line with late 18th-century practice, in which chromatic tones are often treated - and resolved - as neighbor-note decorations of the tonic harmony.


Where I agree with you is that the voice-leading is extrapolated from (if that's what you meant by "in line with") common-practice and everywhere reminiscent of it. That is thoroughly characteristic of Prokofiev's style. But I think the differences and their implications are at least as important as the parallels. In the Mozart the first case isn't a triad and in the second measure the motion is V6-I-V6. The voice-leading includes a sustained pitch, so it is oblique rather than parallel motion. In the Prokofiev the voice-leading is wholly parallel, all of the tones are out of the key, and only the nonharmonic tones contradict it. It is true that the C# triad is a result of neighbor motion, but the fact that it is a complete triad is not an accident. In Prokofiev's vocabulary that C# triad could just as easily have asserted full autonomy and departed for distant terrain. It is a wild card. The neighbor sonorities in the Mozart are on a short diatonic leash.

P.S. - There is no such thing as diatonic side-slipping! What one is slipping out of is key.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I'm with you on Prokofiev. He is my favorite composer and his dissonances are truly beautiful. 

I'm honestly perplexed though at how you (and some others) could lump his 3rd PC in the same company as the great PC 1 and 2. To me 3 isn't as great. It is like watered-down Prokofiev. 

Oh well. Cheers!


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

20centrfuge said:


> I'm with you on Prokofiev. He is my favorite composer and his dissonances are truly beautiful.
> 
> I'm honestly perplexed though at how you (and some others) could lump his 3rd PC in the same company as the great PC 1 and 2. *To me 3 isn't as great*. It is like watered-down Prokofiev.
> 
> Oh well. Cheers!


I find the third to be quite refreshing, with excellent melodies, orchestration, and colorful piano writing- it isn't greater than the first two concertos, but I wouldn't rank this concerto below them.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

To me he seems to follow regular tonality, but usually drops a note a semitone or whole lower than conventional to create that dissonant effect. Very playful. Symphony 6 is very tragic though.


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## chromatic owl (Jan 4, 2017)

Tchaikov6 said:


> I find the third to be quite refreshing, with excellent melodies, orchestration, and colorful piano writing- it isn't greater than the first two concertos, but I wouldn't rank this concerto below them.


Interesting, in my opinion the 2nd concerto is clearly the greatest of them (the first three).


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## chromatic owl (Jan 4, 2017)

In his later works Prokofiev's dissonance became much more subtle and he managed to create a style which I greatly admire. But I also really would not want to live without the more dissonant earlier music such as the 2nd symphony.


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