Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Peters, Penelope Miller

Titel

French harmonic theory in the Conservatoire tradition: Fetis, Reber, Durand, and Gevaert

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Erscheinungsjahr

1990

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Recent investigation of nineteenth century French harmony treatises has opened several avenues of inquiry into that topic. An examination of the theory treatise of Charles-Simon Catel reveals that he made significant contributions to the direction taken by music theorists during the first half of the nineteenth century. Further, substantive features of his theory can be found in works from the entire century. In an attempt to demonstrate that Catel was the initiator of a continuity of music-theoretical thought that can be traced throughout the century, this study will first define the central issues of his theory and then compare Catel's ideas with the theories of four prominent writers from the second half of the nineteenth century: Francois Fetis, Henri Reber, Emil Durand, and Francois Gevaert. In his theory, Catel defines "artificial" chords as those which contain "notes etrangeres a l'accord." For Catel, these are notes which are not components of fundamental chords. The "notes etrangeres a l'accord," created through suspensions processes or chromatic alteration, are the result of linear procedures. The notions of "notes etrangeres" and, consequently, the linear identity of the chords were retained by later writers, although they adapted Catel's categories to fit their own theories. Catel was concerned largely with creating a diatonic theory, but the main interest of French theorists from the second half of the nineteenth century was directed toward chromatic harmony. From 1830, chromatic chords in most French harmony texts were defined as being non-diatonic to any key--a notion which was to be retained by many theorists for the remainder of the century. According to this definition, chromatic harmony, omitting applied dominants and modal interchange, consists entirely of chords of linear origin with one or more chromatic notes, the effect of the altered chord being to intensify connections between chords through the creation of leading tones. Thus, the emphasis the major French theorists placed on melodic motion can be shown to span the principles of both diatonic and chromatic harmonic theory in nineteenth-century France.