# Turning point



## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Last week I spent a few days in Sydney with the acclaimed Australian conductor/teacher Richard Gill in a workshop for young composers that I would have posted something about in the What Happens In Your Life thread a while ago. This year we put a big focus on counterpoint and spent one day of the workshop analysing Bach.

One thing that particularly interested me while analysing his first two part invention the concept of the turning point which can be found at the sequence (starting with the implied first inversion vi harmony at bar three in the score or just before 0:06 in the video below) which prepares the modulation to the dominant key of G major. As many of you probably know already, the turning point of a piece of music is where it changes or first starts to change. In this invention the first two bars state the original motif in the tonic on C and then again on G while still remaining in the tonic. The piece changes (the turning point) with the inversion of that motif in the top voice while in the bottom voice we have an augmentation (the musical values of each note have doubled) of the first four notes of the original motif on other starting pitches which also descend in sequence like the top voice. I like to view the first two bars of this invention as a sort of exposition of the motif and remains tonally static and the motif is played in its purest form unchanged. The turning point is where the motif is fragmented, inverted, played in sequence and whatnot to prepare for the modulation (change of tonal centre) to G major at bars 6 to 7 when we have the perfect cadence that fully establishes the new key.






My point for bringing up the topic of a turning point in a piece of music was because of another piece of music that we looked at for the turning point was Schoenberg's op. 19 no. 2 and it sparked some debate as for where that point is. In fact it is entirely subjective. We all came to our own conclusions by the end of it and we all had our own very good reasons for why we thought which point was the turning point. Now I turn over to the highly intelligent TC members to give me their reasons as to where they think the turning point is in this glorious little piece of music:


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

(1) Fancy turning up to Sydney and seeing Mr Richard Mills, and not letting me know about that. Anyway, moving on ... 

(2) JS Bach's keyboard pieces, or just about most of his fugue pieces are full of inversions, turning points with the most minimal of motif. His was about exhausting the motif with a minimal of material.

(3) As for the Schoenberg piece, I guess from 0:35 onwards. But what the hell do I know, right?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Since the computer I'm on right now doesn't have speakers (at work), I'll reference the score instead of the recording. I think the beginning of measure six is the turning point. Schoenberg stated that he considered his _Kleiner Klavierstueke_ as entire large-scale works in miniature. Using the Bach invention as an example, though, the turning point of KK #2 should probably be the final beat of the second measure (beginning of motivic development, juxtaposing the left-hand motif with new material). However, I've never heard the term "turning point" used like this in music analysis (quite possibly a fault on my part, lacking any formal training whatsoever)--the only reference to the term "turning point" I can find in music theory is as a synonym for the term "pivot tones" in Schoenberg's explanations of the minor scales--, so I'm going with measure six because it's the beginning of the greatest contrast in the piece (equivalent to a sectional division).

Did that make sense? Because I'm confused.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Kopachris said:


> Since the computer I'm on right now doesn't have speakers (at work), I'll reference the score instead of the recording. I think the beginning of measure six is the turning point. Schoenberg stated that he considered his _Kleiner Klavierstueke_ as entire large-scale works in miniature. Using the Bach invention as an example, though, the turning point of KK #2 should probably be the final beat of the second measure (beginning of motivic development, juxtaposing the left-hand motif with new material). However, I've never heard the term "turning point" used like this in music analysis (quite possibly a fault on my part, lacking any formal training whatsoever)--the only reference to the term "turning point" I can find in music theory is as a synonym for the term "pivot tones" in Schoenberg's explanations of the minor scales--, so I'm going with measure six because it's the beginning of the greatest contrast in the piece (equivalent to a sectional division).
> 
> Did that make sense? Because I'm confused.


It did make sense to think that and I value your opinion. 

The Bach didn't have new material as such, just a different treatment of the old material.

The Schoenberg piece is made up entirely of thirds or stacks of thirds where all notes are related by intervals of thirds (including compound thirds) and I believe that the turning point is the second quaver of the last beat of the second bar because no matter how you invert those intervals, the F# will never be related to the G or the B in thirds. It also introduces the idea of broken thirds which are used in bar 3. The first quaver in my opinion is not the turning point (the two note chord is clearly a third) but the second certainly is. If you look at the piece from a harmonic point of view it is the only time you get a chord that isn't a stack of thirds.

But as I said before, from my own experience there is no "correct" answer to where the turning point is and what I think is just my opinion. What is beautiful about op. 19 no. 2 is that it is open to so much interpretation and I have heard many plausible reasons as to other places that have been described as the turning point.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I agree with Kopa about the beginning of bar 6 in the Schoenberg piece. I haven't heard of the 'turning point' before either, but it is a very interesting idea, especially since I was effectively using the same concept in an analysis of a Mozart sonata the other day, albeit in a different context.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ...the concept of the turning point which can be found at the sequence (starting with the implied first inversion vi harmony at bar three in the score...) which prepares the modulation to the dominant key of G major....The turning point is where the motif is fragmented, inverted, played in sequence and whatnot to prepare for the modulation (change of tonal centre) to G major at bars 6 to 7 when we have the perfect cadence that fully establishes the new key.


We're in C...I think the more decisive turning point is when the non-diatonic note F# (the major third of a D7 or V of V) is introduced in the bass voice in measure 4. The vi minor you mentioned at the end of measure 3 is totally congruent with the key of C; in fact, I don't see that A-B-C in the bass, m. 3-4, as being a chord, but just a stepwise move up to C again, and the C-E in the bass, beginning m.4 is still C. The real change for my ear comes with the introduction of E to F# in the bass, m.4, which gives us D7, or V of V, preparing the G chord as the modulation.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> My point for bringing up the topic of a turning point in a piece of music was because of another piece of music that we looked at for the turning point was Schoenberg's op. 19 no. 2 and it sparked some debate as for where that point is. In fact it is entirely subjective. We all came to our own conclusions by the end of it and we all had our own very good reasons for why we thought which point was the turning point. Now I turn over to the highly intelligent TC members to give me their reasons as to where they think the turning point is in this glorious little piece of music...


In the Schoenberg, I hear him as using the G-B motif as a stabilizing influence. My ear wants to hear this G-B as a G major chord fragment; this is reinforced by the high r.h. B-D, and then F#, implying a G maj 7; but this is first challenged with the introduction of D# in m. 3, a raised 5th (augmented sound) for the G chord (the turning point for me). Or is it? Played all together, the D#-F#-G-B-D gives us a B/ sharp-nine sound, a possible dominant for E minor (which is reinforced by the fact that it is written as D# (sharp 9), not Eb). Maybe the G-B is part of an E minor, rather than G. The piece ends with G-B-Eb-F#-Bb-D, which I hear as an E minor/maj7-b5, with that added E. Who knows? I do hear a certain augmented quality to the whole thing, which gives it a suspended, floating feeling.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> We're in C...I think the more decisive turning point is when the non-diatonic note F# (the major third of a D7 or V of V) is introduced in the bass voice in measure 4. The vi minor you mentioned at the end of measure 3 is totally congruent with the key of C; in fact, I don't see that A-B-C in the bass, m. 3-4, as being a chord, but just a stepwise move up to C again, and the C-E in the bass, beginning m.4 is still C. The real change for my ear comes with the introduction of E to F# in the bass, m.4, which gives us D7, or V of V, preparing the G chord as the modulation.


The _implied first inversion vi_ at the beginning of bar three: C in the bass, E followed by A in the top voice. Bach is different to Schoenberg and while both can be viewed from the point of tonality the Bach invention is all about motific development, "inventing" music from the motif stated in bar 1 and on G in bar 2. The turning point starts at bar 3 when Bach gives us the first example of taking apart the motif and developing it which ultimately leads to the modulation to G major. That's what I have been taught.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

OK, that's a motivic analysis, and mine is a harmonic analysis.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

In the Schoenberg for me the turning point would be the Ab in the right hand on the last beat of bar 3.
My reason is that up till then we think we are in G/ e minor. The right hand enters with a D and a B which confirms G but straight away moves to a F-sharp followed by a D-sharp which seems to define E minor leading us to expect a B where in fact we get the A-flat. The A-flat also initiates a break away from the left hand rhythmic pattern and we get the tied notes at the end of bar 3 which disrupts the the expected pattern. It is further disrupted by the following C and E-flat which now obliterates the feeling that we may be in E minor and we can no longer hear the original G and B in that context.
It seems to me that the Ab kicks it all off.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I'm loving the responses guys. Keep it up!


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

So, do we have a general consensus on the turning point? I want to know!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> So, do we have a general consensus on the turning point? I want to know!


Not yet... we probably won't anyway.

I used to have a different opinion on where the turning point was before I did an analysis on the harmony. I used to think it was at the tie at the end of bar three and all of bar four. In the first three bars the left hand plays an ostinato of staccato quavers on G and B and at the end of bar three and in bar four that idea disappears because of the different rhythm and also in bar four we are first introduced to the concept of the thirds moving in similar motion, an idea that comes back throughout the rest of the piece.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> So, do we have a general consensus on the turning point? I want to know!


I think the point is that we can't have a consensus on the turning point of that kind of work. In a way, it depends on how we listen to it; everyone listens differently.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Tomorrow I'll get another Schoenberg piece to analyse for a turning point.


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