# How Much Chromaticism Can You Handle?



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I was thinking about this lately, that in the last 7-8 years of my life, my tolerance for chromaticism has increased greatly. I use to get very uncomfortable listening to extreme chromaticism (i.e. Rimsky-Korsakov), but I have since grown accustomed to it and even enjoy it in its own quirky way. I'm speaking of chromatic melodies but also harmonies. In fact, I can say today that some of my favorite composers tended on the hyperchromatic side. Franck, Liszt and Wagner immediately come to mind, and also most of the Russian composers but particularly the Nationalists.

In fact, I think it's quite laughable in a good way. I mean... can you possibly NOT have drunkenness as a character trait of anything that's quite as chromatic as this?? 





Personally, I get a bit dizzy listening to this one D):


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I'm afraid by context of what I am accustomed to that the Rimsky-Korsakov link you cite is 'just old tonal music,' and I don't hear what you consider so 'chromatic' about it.

But... LOL. what is so 'extremely chromatic' about this music? ...and where does that leave, by comparison something like Richard Strauss in his 'Salome' mode?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think for me a lot has to do with who the composer was. A Bach chromatic fugue is no problem.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

PetrB said:


> LOL. what is so 'extremely chromatic' about Rimsky-Korsakov's music? ...and where does that leave Richard Strauss in his 'Salome' mode?


Just because I didn't mention R. Strauss doesn't mean he's not included.

Scheherazade use to annoy me, _long _ago, when I was in elementary school, because it was too dizzyingly romantic.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I think I can handle all of the chromaticism. Bring it on!


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

The only 'chromaticism' I still have troubles with is that of Messiaen, which in many cases still sounds repulsive to my ears. I can only listen to him in the right mood. The musical equivalent of regurgitated fruit cocktail drink.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> The only 'chromaticism' I still have troubles with is that of Messiaen, which in many cases still sounds repulsive to my ears. I can only listen to him in the right mood. The musical equivalent of regurgitated fruit cocktail drink.


Much of the same can be said for Messiaen's music. I get the feeling he was trying to be "religious" with every note he wrote as well, as if trying to be so many things all at once, including complex and contemporary concurrently. There is nothing wrong with that per se of course. Greats of the past were like that often, for example Joseph Haydn - religious, new, pushing / developing the forms of his day etc.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

ArtMusic said:


> Much of the same can be said for Messiaen's music. I get the feeling he was trying to be "religious" with every note he wrote as well, as if trying to be so many things all at once, including complex and contemporary concurrently. There is nothing wrong with that per se of course. Greats of the past were like that often, for example Joseph Haydn - religious, new, pushing / developing the forms of his day etc.


Messiaen did at least once express to his students the feeling that he was in a 'profound night', couldn't figure out where he was going, but he was probably never 'trying to be religious' - he just was. The Big Move of his maturity seems to have been confessing to his class at Darmstadt that he was for the birds.

There seems to be some confusion in this thread - including by the OP - about what is meant musicologically by 'chromaticism'. As soon as we get beyond the 12 tones per 'octave' scale, I don't know what those folks are talking about either.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Clear-thinking from Ukko - dunno how accurate linking Messiaen and chromatic harmony or melody is. I tend to think of chromaticism being part of a system based in common practice tonality (you may have other ideas) - and this would not include mature Messiaen. If such ideas aren't making sense to you perhaps refrain from using terms such as "chromaticism" and "atonal"


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Since Bach was one of the earliest of my favorites and many of his fugues are on the extreme end of chromaticism (for the common practice era, folks) I have no trouble at all with it. It seems natural to me. The fun Rimsky-Korsakoff piece above notwithstanding, it usually sounds serious and academic to me - or faux-exotic in a good way as in other Rimsky-Korsakoff works such as Le Coq d'Or Suite, etc.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Weston said:


> Since Bach was one of the earliest of my favorites and many of his fugues are on the extreme end of chromaticism (for the common practice era, folks) I have no trouble at all with it. It seems natural to me. The fun Rimsky-Korsakoff piece above notwithstanding, it usually sounds serious and academic to me - or faux-exotic in a good way as in other Rimsky-Korsakoff works such as Le Coq d'Or Suite, etc.




Makes sense - unless one manages (as I did) to read 'faux-exotic' as false erotic... which makes a difference.


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

oops! wrong thread


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Messiaen's music (like Dutilleux's or Takemitsu's) is post-Impressionist anyway, based on piling up symmetrical scales of various kinds together, so "chromatic" may not be quite the right word. It would be more accurate to call Schoenberg's late music "chromatic", as it retains the same sense of leading tone that you find in common practice tonality.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I didn't have my reading glasses on. I thought the thread subject read, How Much Circumcision Can You Handle? Never mind. Was just sayin'.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Vaneyes said:


> I didn't have my reading glasses on. I thought the thread subject read, How Much Circumcision Can You Handle? Never mind. Was just sayin'.


You sure do cut to the chase!


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I don't have any classical music training, hence I understand little of music theory (although I have been taking some great books out of the library in the last 12 months to help me understand), so I don't divide music into chromatic, tonal, dissonant, atonal or what-have-you. Chromaticism or lack of chromaticism are not determinants for liking or disliking a piece.

I subjectively sort pieces more in terms of conventional (not a bad thing! Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn and the rest of the common practice music) and less conventional (Schoenberg, Webern, Xenakis, Messiaen, of course, but borderline cases such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich and others).

In any case, I love it all. Bring it on!


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

No music training here as well, and I have the same perceptions as brotagonist.

While atonality/tonality is quite an immediate perception to me, I must say that most of the times I do not realize I am listening to chromaticism until I read about it.

For instance, I read and understand that this is full of chromaticism, but why should it be difficult?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Stavrogin said:


> No music training here as well, and I have the same perceptions as brotagonist.
> 
> While atonality/tonality is quite an immediate perception to me, I must say that most of the times I do not realize I am listening to chromaticism until I read about it.
> 
> For instance, I read and understand that this is full of chromaticism, but why should it be difficult?


This is a complex subject. But the chromaticism in the right hand of the Chopin piece you linked to is mostly incidental, just filling in the gaps in a minor scale while the harmony is, primarily, simple and diatonic (within the notes of the scale). The chromaticism is (mostly) skin deep, so to speak, and not (primarily) in the structural harmonies. That kind is not difficult for listeners.

When one is dealing with several lines, all of which are chromatic, on the other hand, it can sometimes be difficult to even identify the underlying harmonic structure, if indeed such a structure is present or relevant. Sometimes such fluid counterpart implies harmonies from distantly related keys and can verge on atonality. Some folks find this kind challenging.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How much chromaticism can I handle?

How much you got?


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> This is a complex subject. But the chromaticism in the right hand of the Chopin piece you linked to is mostly incidental, just filling in the gaps in a minor scale while the harmony is, primarily, simple and diatonic (within the notes of the scale). The chromaticism is (mostly) skin deep, so to speak, and not (primarily) in the structural harmonies. That kind is not difficult for listeners.
> 
> When one is dealing with several lines, all of which are chromatic, on the other hand, it can sometimes be difficult to even identify the underlying harmonic structure, if indeed such a structure is present or relevant. Sometimes such fluid counterpart implies harmonies from distantly related keys and can verge on atonality. Some folks find this kind challenging.


Can you please provide an example of the second type?
(Otherwise it's like reading Arabic for me )


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Messiaen's music (like Dutilleux's or Takemitsu's) is post-Impressionist anyway, based on piling up symmetrical scales of various kinds together, so "chromatic" may not be quite the right word. It would be more accurate to call Schoenberg's late music "chromatic", as it retains the same sense of leading tone that you find in common practice tonality.


Thanks for your intervention here. "Chromatic" was threatening to become a codeword for "dissonance that my ear isn't used to." In terms of "chromaticism" in the narrow sense, one finds strong elements of it in Debussy that most modern listeners wouldn't find terribly dissonant (with his various whole tone scales or pentatonic scales or simply extravagant passing chromatic coloration) -- and even more so in Scriabin who most would think of as a romantic or late romantic. I have found helpful to read, whether very accessible non-technical books like Alex Ross' _The Rest Is Noise_ or more technical surveys such as Richard Taruskin's _Oxford History of Western Music_, vol. 4 and 5, or for that matter, reading good liner notes, which spell out all these distinctions. By the way, for a fine more biographically based study, see David J. Code, _Claude Debussy_, Critical Lives series (London: Reaktion Books, 2010), which does a fine job of tracing Debussy's musical evolution. This does much to debunk the "impressionist" label showing Debussy's inspiration lay in the poetry of the Symbolistes. Also recommended: Nicholas Cook and Anthony Poole, eds., _The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). If one spends anytime listening to Messiaen, one can hear how different his harmonic constructions are from the Second Vienna School and how much his are a development of earlier French traditions. (That may be even more the case with Dutilleux).


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Stavrogin said:


> Can you please provide an example of the second type?
> (Otherwise it's like reading Arabic for me )


I just listened to Zemlinsky's 2nd String Quartet. Highly chromatic in all parts.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"Help, I've lost the key center and I can't get up!"


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## Guest (Apr 27, 2014)

Stavrogin said:


> No music training here as well, and I have the same perceptions as brotagonist.
> 
> While atonality/tonality is quite an immediate perception to me, I must say that most of the times I do not realize I am listening to chromaticism until I read about it.
> 
> For instance, I read and understand that this is full of chromaticism, but why should it be difficult?


It's just piano playing...and fairly annoying playing at that, practising scales at high speed!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

1. Haydn, Symphony No. 1

2. Strauss, _Metamorphosen
_
3. Berg's _Lyric Suite_


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Messiaen's music (like Dutilleux's or Takemitsu's) is post-Impressionist anyway, based on piling up symmetrical scales of various kinds together, so "chromatic" may not be quite the right word. It would be more accurate to call Schoenberg's late music "chromatic", as it retains the same sense of leading tone that you find in common practice tonality.


Right, that's exactly what I was thinking. Chromaticism in a tonal context. There are tons of examples of chromaticism used in a non-tonal way, but because there's none of that "leading tone" stuff, it has a different effect.

For those are want an example of what I think is "extreme chromaticism" Glazunov's fugues are crazy:
Start at 4:30




He was definitely in a different trend of thought when he wrote his series of preludes and fugues, he had recently gotten into early Baroque music and of course loved Bach and his contemporaries. It's like a commentary on all of that plus his own style mixed in.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

brotagonist said:


> I don't have any classical music training, hence I understand little of music theory (although I have been taking some great books out of the library in the last 12 months to help me understand), so I don't divide music into chromatic, tonal, dissonant, atonal or what-have-you. Chromaticism or lack of chromaticism are not determinants for liking or disliking a piece.


Just because you don't know what you're hearing doesn't mean it's not effecting you. "What you don't know can't hurt you" doesn't apply to music.

Did I know that Scheherazade was super chromatic when I was in elementary school? No! I didn't even play flute yet. It was many years later I discovered the _what _about my dislike. It explained some correlations that I also discovered at the time why I might _also _dislike other similar pieces. That's the point. If someone happens to know the _what_, good for them! It's just for personal benefit and in fact has little influence on opinion. It's just for explanation.

Try out the Glazunov fugue I posted above, you may have long-lasting impressions.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

There was a day when I thought that Cesar Franck's _Symphony in D minor_ was too dissonant for my ears.

Now? I can take anything you throw at me, including Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_ and Penderecki's _Polymorphia_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I can handle as much chromaticism as a composer can handle convincingly. 

Chromatic harmony (harmony in which parts, or voices, move by half-step) tends toward tonal (key center) ambivalence and instability; it challenges a composer to find ways of keeping a sense of purpose and direction and giving the composition an overall shape that makes sense to the listener, as opposed to simply playing around with harmonic slipping and sliding for the fun of hearing how many remote places he can wander off to. The latter I have found I can do for unlimited, pleasantly aimless hours at the piano without ever generating the complete works of Wagner.


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## Matsps (Jan 13, 2014)

I can handle over 9000 chromaticism.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Chromaticism is, of course, measured in schoenbergs. I can handle about 500-550 millischoenbergs, no more than that or I start to get numb at the extremities.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Just because you don't know what you're hearing doesn't mean it's not effecting you.


I have always suspected this, and it goes far deeper than just the melody, whether a boisterous or a wistful one. Daniel Levitin, in _This is your Brain on Music_, writes:

"Different aspects of the music... such as pitch, tempo, timbre and so on... are handled by different neural regions.... Pitch is so important that the brain represents it directly.... [D]ifferent areas of the brain respond to different pitches.... [W]e could place electrodes in the brain and be able to determine what pitches are being played to a person just by looking at the brain activity. And although music is based on pitch relations rather than absolute pitch values, it is, paradoxically, these absolute pitch values that the brain is paying attention to...".

The fact that there are actually neurons attuned to specific pitches suggests that their firing could verily have an effect on an individual and this could be employed by a skilled composer to produce quite specific effects: emotive, transcendental, possibly even therapeutic ones.



Huilunsoittaja said:


> Try out the Glazunov fugue I posted above, you may have long-lasting impressions.


Yes, I have. It is very beautiful... the first Glazunov I have ever heard. I am sure there will be long-lasting impressions, although I cannot say what they will be  There is something about the cascading sequence of notes that brings to mind serialism. Am I that far off? And there is an overt sense of Bach right from the start, of course.



KenOC said:


> Chromaticism is, of course, measured in schoenbergs. I can handle about 500-550 millischoenbergs, no more than that or I start to get numb at the extremities.


What, millischoenbergs only! I am sure my tolerance is measured in kiloschoenbergs


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I once played the overture to Hansel and Gretel. You have to know your chromatic scales. 

I just listened to the Glazunov violin concerto, plenty there too, especially the cadenza. 

I think chromaticism just adds colour to a piece.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I can handle as much chromaticism as a composer can handle convincingly.
> 
> Chromatic harmony (harmony in which parts, or voices, move by half-step) tends toward tonal (key center) ambivalence and instability; it challenges a composer to find ways of keeping a sense of purpose and direction and giving the composition an overall shape that makes sense to the listener, as opposed to simply playing around with harmonic slipping and sliding for the fun of hearing how many remote places he can wander off to. The latter I have found I can do for unlimited, pleasantly aimless hours at the piano without ever generating the complete works of Wagner.


-----
Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . I love that.

-- Like how many googleplex of times would it take for a chimp at a typewriter hitting keys at random to come up with_ Hamlet_; _mutatis mutandis_ for chromatic note-spinning cleverness becoming a _Tristan_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Marschallin Blair said:


> -----
> Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . I love that.
> 
> -- Like how many googleplex of times would it take for a chimp at a typewriter hitting keys at random to come up with_ Hamlet_; _mutatis mutandis_ for chromatic note-spinning cleverness becoming a _Tristan_.


Out of the mouths of Blairs...

And I've tried so hard to downplay my lower-order ancestry...


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> -----
> Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . I love that.
> 
> -- Like how many googleplex of times would it take for a chimp at a typewriter hitting keys at random to come up with Hamlet; mutatis mutandis for chromatic note-spinning cleverness becoming a Tristan.





> Out of the mouths of Blairs...
> 
> And I've tried so hard to downplay my lower-order ancestry...


Brains. Beauty. Breeding. . . I have a pretty good turn of phrase, but Shakespeare is undeniably good too.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Chromaticism is, of course, measured in schoenbergs. I can handle about 500-550 millischoenbergs, no more than that or I start to get numb at the extremities.


Ha ha haa! LOL!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*I used to worry*

I used to worry about how much chromaticism I could safely consume, but ever since the surgical implant of my auto reflexive defibrillator...


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

brotagonist said:


> Yes, I have. It is very beautiful... the first Glazunov I have ever heard. I am sure there will be long-lasting impressions, although I cannot say what they will be  There is something about the cascading sequence of notes that brings to mind serialism. Am I that far off? And there is an overt sense of Bach right from the start, of course.


Wow! Your impression is impressionable on _me!_ I've never heard anyone call Glazunov "serlialist" or even "serialist-like" Now I've heard everything LOL. Glazunov certainly knew about free-atonality, but I believe that "dodecophony" as we know it wasn't yet expounded upon by Schoenberg at that time (that fugue was written quite close to the time of the Russian Revolution). I've read some memoirs by Glazunov where he was saying at around that time that he "tried" to be in vogue.  Of course, he made fun of such modern composers that way, but it's true as well that although he couldn't quite get a grip on all that stuff, he tried to make it accessible to himself, so those fugues were part of his way of making "orderly dissonance" which you could say _is_ a precursor to Schoenberg's dodecophony.

Oh, and I should note, most Glazunov sounds almost _nothing _like that fugue, he was a tonal composer through and through that only experimented occasionally.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Wow! Your impression is impressionable on _me!_ I've never heard anyone call Glazunov "serlialist" or even "serialist-like" Now I've heard everything LOL. Glazunov certainly knew about free-atonality, but I believe that "dodecophony" as we know it wasn't yet expounded upon by Schoenberg at that time (that fugue was written quite close to the time of the Russian Revolution). I've read some memoirs by Glazunov where he was saying at around that time that he "tried" to be in vogue.  Of course, he made fun of such modern composers that way, but it's true as well that although he couldn't quite get a grip on all that stuff, he tried to make it accessible to himself, so those fugues were part of his way of making "orderly dissonance" which you could say _is_ a precursor to Schoenberg's dodecophony.
> 
> Oh, and I should note, most Glazunov sounds almost _nothing _like that fugue, he was a tonal composer through and through that only experimented occasionally.


I was reacting to the cascading effect of the fugue, combined with the piano and likely the chromaticism (as you said, I am likely reacting to it, even though I don't know what it is), which can often evoke a serial-like pattern to my hearing, such as Webern was wont to write. While detractors of the New Viennese School will find every excuse to revile their compositions, an "orderly dissonance", often taken to the extreme, is what I hear in their music. Isn't it a sense of controlled order in disorder (the tangled threads) that is at the root of fugue-writing?

Also, I researched a bit and found that this Glazunov piece was one of his latter ones, from 1918-1923, by which time Schoenberg has begun to employ chromaticism (4th movement, 2nd SQ, 1908, rev. 1921) and the 12-tone technique (5 Piano Pieces, Op. 23, 1920-1923). You are correct in noting, as I discovered to my disappointment, that this piece is "nothing like" the bulk of his output


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

I listen to 4-year-old piano improvisation pretty regularly, so, a whole lot of chromaticism I believe!


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## Tieb (Apr 30, 2014)

Awesome forum!!! love this topic.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Me too.. Chromaticism is one of my favorite things in music. From the 25th Goldberg variation to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde... makes the hair on my neck stand on end. The black keys are more interesting. Half steps all the way.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Oh and how could I forget; I only just discovered Franck's compositions. I sort of can't stop listening to the last movement of his piano quintet in f. It seems like all his works are drenched in chromaticism. Thoughts?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I can handel chromaticism composed within the form and structure of pre-early 20th century chromaticism, beyond which it is a musical curiosity on the score to read rather than to listen.


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## Guest (Jul 12, 2014)

Returning to this thread to make sure I checked out all the pieces on offer, only the Scriabin attracted my attention - but that wretched 'trilling' (?) effect was so annoying I had to give up. I'd rather listen to Debussy or Zappa...






(I refer to the piano opening, but the rest of it's pretty good too!)


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

I like to listen to Fauré, so I guess that I like it quite a lot. I'm using a strict definition of chromaticism here.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

We all remember that great movie moment:

"I want chromaticism!"

"You can't HANDLE chromaticism!"


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

amfortas said:


> We all remember that great movie moment:
> 
> "I want chromaticism!"
> 
> "You can't HANDLE chromaticism!"


And that earlier, tonal moment when he announced, "Honey, I'm Home!"


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> And that earlier, tonal moment when he announced, "Honey, I'm Home!"


Is this a "Shining" reference? If it is we should definitely be friends.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: How much you got?? Lay it on me!!!


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