# Most complex/free tonality before Wagner?



## matsoljare (Jul 28, 2008)

Since Wagner and Liszt is pretty much considered the first to use the most complex and dissonant note combinations, and use all 12 notes somewhat equally (not just as passing notes), what do you consider to be the most complex, free or unexpected tonality written before them?


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Gesualdo (I only really know the Book 5 and 6 motets) is fairly complex and plenty unexpected. And there is obviously plenty of crunchy Bach - would be great for people to list their favourites! I'll be watching with interest


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

^ I was going to say Bach, but not being musically trained, I thought this was a trick question that I would get stumped on :lol:


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Try this late 14th-century work by Solage, entitled "Fumeux fume par fumee" ("Smokers smoke by smoking ..." This is an example of the sort of works that the avant-garde were up to at the papal court of Avignon in this era. It is for the Middle Ages what Gesualdo was for the Renaissance:

On Solage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solage

The score:
http://musescore.com/user/17277/scores/29603

There are several performances on YouTube. I find the tempo here a little too slow, but you can hear the chromaticism. Of course, the model here is not framed against a major / minor context, but within the vocabulary of the medieval modes. It is a sort of extravagent recasting against the background of Machaut


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

14th century Avant-Garde, you say? That's amazing. Thanks.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Le Cahos, from "Les Elemens". In your face from Rebel, 1737. "Chaos begins with an unheard of dissonance, sustaining all seven notes of the D minor scale in one harsh chord. After a short silence, one hears the formation of elements pulsating into existence. Each is introduced as melodic themes that are developed together in later movements. "Air" appears in a high register wind tone suspended above the chaos. Slow, flowing scales depict the appearance of "Water". "Fire and Earth" enter together at opposite ends of the register: "Fire," the shimmering violins dancing with "Air," float above the rumblings of "Earth's" bass section. As the four elements develop, interweaving throughout their seven appearances, the rhythmic "Chaos" diminishes."


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Adding to Alypius's post. Solage belongs to a period called *Ars subtilior*. Check this and this.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Adding to Alypius's post. Solage belongs to a period called *Ars subtilior*. Check this and this.


aleazk, Thanks so much for that recommendation. I hadn't seen either this record nor that Harmonia mundi series. As I scan the selections on that volume, some of the composers are later than the Avignon avant-garde per se, namely, Ockeghem, Dufay, Busnois, and Binchois (and thus later than the "Ars subtilior" in the technical sense). But it looks like a terrific selection and a fine introduction to the period.

Here's an entire record devoted to this music:


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

yay Solage is my favorite medieval composer
but I also love Gesualdo and Bach a lot


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

it must be said that some of the most harmonically curious pieces of the past were composed as sort of jokes, like Mozart's Musical joke




 (but he composed also the gige kv 574 



 and the begininning of his dissonance quartet too) or Biber's Battalia (listen at 2:00) or Jargon, a very dissonant piece composed by William Billings:





after that, obviously there's Bach (Glenn Gould famously said about it that "I don't think there's been a richer lode of enharmonic relationships any place between Gesualdo and Wagner."





and Beethoven's Grosse fuge.
Also Machbeth and the witches composed by Smetana in 1859 is a very dissonant piece 





I didn't know that Solage piece, thanks Alypius!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Just a note on the performances of Ars Subtilior music posted above: I'm pretty sure the standard performing forces for secular songs by Solage, Machaut and the others would have been solo voice with instrumental accompaniment — very heterogeneous textures rather than the smooth, homogenized vocal arrangements of Gothic Voices (as beautiful as they are). Also, the most complex aspect of this music was metric and rhythmic; it is the most complex notated music before the 20th century in this regard. A system in which successive meter changes could require strange proportional relationships, 5 notes of one fitting, for example, into the space of 4 in the preceding. There are also, frequently, different simultaneous meters and proportions in the different voices. The stuff is really difficult to transcribe into modern notation.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Adding to Alypius's post. Solage belongs to a period called *Ars subtilior*. Check this and this.





Alypius said:


> aleazk, Thanks so much for that recommendation. I hadn't seen either this record nor that Harmonia mundi series. As I scan the selections on that volume, some of the composers are later than the Avignon avant-garde per se, namely, Ockeghem, Dufay, Busnois, and Binchois (and thus later than the "Ars subtilior" in the technical sense). But it looks like a terrific selection and a fine introduction to the period.
> 
> Here's an entire record devoted to this music:


This is absolutely wonderful. I don't know why I haven't dug into this period before, as I love ancient vocal. Thanks fellas.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

_Congaudeant catholici_ from the Codex Calixtinus (12th-century) is believed to be the first example of a composition for three voices. However, the 'dissonance' when sung and also the fact that the third voice is written in a different color make the scholars suspect that a three voices composition may not have been the original intention.

It's up to you


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## matsoljare (Jul 28, 2008)

I know of most of those example from the Renaissance, but i'm looking specifically for pieces from the 19th and possible even 18th century that can be considered the direct precursor of Liszt and Wagner's harmonic explorations. All of those later pieces just use chromatic melodic transitions, or dissonant / atonal-esque parts for comic or chaotic effect rather than as a *main stylistic element.* Who were considered the most harmonically complex composers before those two?


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

matsoljare said:


> I know of most of those example from the Renaissance, but i'm looking specifically for pieces from the 19th and possible even 18th century that can be considered the direct precursor of Liszt and Wagner's harmonic explorations. All of those later pieces just use chromatic melodic transitions, or dissonant / atonal-esque parts for comic or chaotic effect rather than as a *main stylistic element.* Who were considered the most harmonically complex composers before those two?


Hector Berlioz, his Romeo and Juliet had a big impact on Wagner.


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

There are moment in Mozart, such as the opening of his String Quartet No. 19 or the sudden minor second clash in the introduction of his Symphony No. 39 that seem to push the envelope a bit, although both are well within the context of classical diatonic harmony.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Whistler Fred said:


> There are moment in Mozart, such as the opening of his String Quartet No. 19 or the sudden minor second clash in the introduction of his Symphony No. 39 that seem to push the envelope a bit, although both are well within the context of classical diatonic harmony.


The beginning of the development in the finale of the G minor Symphony #40 is famous for using all of the notes of the chromatic scale (except for the tonic) in a short span of time. Those bars are unharmonized, which makes it seem all the rougher.


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## matsoljare (Jul 28, 2008)

Not so unusual harmonically, but this whole piece sounds very "modern" to me, almost like some kind of minimalist deconstruction of the classical forms. Anyone else agree?


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## binkley (Feb 2, 2013)

matsoljare said:


> Not so unusual harmonically, but this whole piece sounds very "modern" to me, almost like some kind of minimalist deconstruction of the classical forms. Anyone else agree?


It doesn't sound modern to me, but I like it quite a bit.

Is it identified correctly? Searching on K. 616 turns up "Andante in F for a Small Mechanical Organ". I suppose it could have been transcribed for an ensemble, but the opening bars sound different to me also.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

binkley said:


> It doesn't sound modern to me, but I like it quite a bit.
> 
> Is it identified correctly? Searching on K. 616 turns up "Andante in F for a Small Mechanical Organ". I suppose it could have been transcribed for an ensemble, but the opening bars sound different to me also.


No, it's the Adagio and Rondo for glass harmonica k.617.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

*LvB*: Grosse Fugue, Op. 133.

Takacs link.:tiphat:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Back to Mozart, the adagio from the String Quintet in D, K. 593 is extraordinary.






The passage beginning at 3:11 is startling in its disjunctures, and following 3:47 you hear something you would think beyond the capacity of an 18th-century composer to imagine. I'm struck not only by the harmony itself, but by the fact that the serene and gentle initial statement of the themes gives us no warning that any of this is going to happen. After the first shock of the parallel minor deceptive cadence at 1:08, the unsettledness and ambivalence of mood is like nothing in music I can think of until late Beethoven and, even more typically, Schubert.

I get the feeling that Mozart was consciously seeking out the expressive limits of the musical language of his day, and it's interesting that this work was written in 1790, the year the word "Romantic" is first known to have appeared in print to describe the new cultural and artistic sensibility then in the ascendant.

What if Mozart had lived another 20, 30, or 40 years? If we think _this_ music is startling...


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Back to Mozart, the adagio from the String Quintet in D, K. 593 is extraordinary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is gorgeous. I'm only at 02:43 and I love it.

Thanks.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Domenico Scarlatti tends to have a very quick harmonic rhythm. There are few composers who go through so many keys, so quickly. Additionally, he does many thing not typical of common practice music, adding notes to chords for extra color, likely due to his spanish influence, and using blatant parallel 5ths.

One of my favorite sonatas, K 260, starts off sounding very simple, and then has a passage(and several more like it) where we go through some very remote keys only to end up back on the dominant of the tonic. The effect in this piece is not comical or merely clever deception, it sounds to my ears intense and interesting.

There are more overtly dissonant sonatas, but I am unable to cite their K numbers off hand.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Back to Mozart, the adagio from the String Quintet in D, K. 593 is extraordinary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Does anyone have a performance they'd fervidly recommend of this? I'm kind of a babe in the woods when it comes to Mozart's chamber works.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Charles Valentin Alkan was an odd bird, and I can think of one piece of his that has a quite chromatic and fugal theme, the Gigue op 24, which can be found on youtube(the internet is giving me problems right now).

The Scherzo Diabolico has a similarly chromatic beginning, though the rest is not so chromatic, but it is still a typically odd though interesting piece of his.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Does anyone have a performance they'd fervidly recommend of this? I'm kind of a babe in the woods when it comes to Mozart's chamber works.


I have the old classic Grumiaux and company on a Philips Trio set with the other quintets. It's probably still as fine as any, but others may be more up to date sound-wise (not that that matters to me).


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)




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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Itullian said:


>


What do you think of it, Itullian?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Lastly, I recommend a few late renaissance English composers.

*John Bull* can sometimes be very "harmonically" adventurous in all the cross relations and chromatic passages that can ensue with his very virtuosic and complex keyboard style. Sometimes the most avant garde harmonically of his music is ironically, the least notey and complex.

*Orlando Gibbons* has a few viol fantasias, namely I'm thinking of number 3, that hold back nothing with a start on a chord that quickly moves to a minor 2nd clash, and I seem to recall in another that there is an ascending chromatic line that keeps rising and rising to very dramatic effect.

*William Lawes*, who came a little after Gibbons, REALLY gets dissonant in his sets for viol consort. The Gibbons is a very organized foreshadowing of what we find in Lawes.

Last and perhaps most importantly in this vein for the purposes of this thread, are the *viol fantasias of Henry Purcell*. I challenge you to listen to any one of these fantasias and not be surprised at the dissonances and harmonic wandering that occur. If you've heard any other Purcell and not these, you are in for a shock. These pieces are perhaps the culmination of all that went into the viol fantasia tradition in England.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> What do you think of it, Itullian?


No matter. I just pinged Amazon.

Thanks.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Marschallin Blair said:


> What do you think of it, Itullian?


I have it as part of the Complete Mozart series. It's wonderful in both sound and performance. Never felt the need for another,


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Try the Chopin _Preludes_. Some fascinating chromaticism. One of them uses blues-like major/minor harmony, and another ends on a tonic chord with an added seventh - not the major seventh jazz has accustomed us to, but an unresolved flatted seventh, which to my knowledge was never to be used again in that position until the 20th century.


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## ProudSquire (Nov 30, 2011)

For the Mozart quintets, my favorite recording is done by the Salomon Quartet. I highly recommend it, though it's a bit hard to find. Here's a link where you can sample some of their work and if you happen to like it you can purchase the cd.

http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDD22005

:cheers:


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Itullian said:


> I have it as part of the Complete Mozart series. It's wonderful in both sound and performance. Never felt the need for another,


Sorry for my impetuosity.

I appreciate your evaluation.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

TheProudSquire said:


> For the Mozart quintets, my favorite recording is done by the Salomon Quartet. I highly recommend it, though it's a bit hard to find. Here's a link where you can sample some of their work and if you happen to like it you can purchase the cd.
> 
> http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDD22005
> 
> :cheers:


Oh. . . . . . . . . this _does_ sound good.

I just ordered the DG Grumiaux though.

Perhaps it will be in the cards down the line.

_Mercibeaucoup. __;D_


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## mikey (Nov 26, 2013)

Check out Reicha's 36 fugues. I remember looking at the music and suspecting a C20th composer... how wrong I was!
Here's the wiki article. I'm sure there's recordings somewhere too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36_Fugues_(Reicha)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I looked into Reicha's fugues some time ago. #20 is the earliest work I have found that's entirely in quintuple time.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

yesterday I was listening to John Dowland and his Forlorne hope fancy and there's some very interesting chromaticism 





I don't know the exact year when he composed it but I don't think I've listened other instrumental pieces of the period so dissonant. If there are similar things I'd be really curious to listen to something like that.


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