Part II
iv. Pitch: Harmony and Melody
The start of Verblendungen includes two material types which have identifiable pitch content. The first, on tape (material type 2), a rich sound based upon the low E1 and the other in the orchestra (material type 4), the dense chord previously identified (fig.5). Initially these sounds appear to be very different, the tape sound being a single sound with a single pitch, whilst the orchestral chord is obviously made up by many instruments, playing different pitches. However, the sonogram of the start of the piece shows similarities between the two, where both appear as a collection of horizontal bands,
revealing both sounds to be groupings of several pitches, those of the tape sounds having regular spacing and belonging to the harmonic series, the orchestra's being irregular (inharmonic) as previously identified and now shown in figure 13.
Both of these sounds exist ambiguously on the boundary between single, fused sounds and composite, chordal sounds, the ear being able to hear both as single and composite sounds depending on context. The tape sound is spectrally very rich, having upper harmonics which are relatively loud and are clearly audible, if not easily separable from their low E fundamental. The orchestral chord, despite its obvious composite nature (at least on paper) is played very loudly and has too many pitches within it, too closely spaced for the ear to be able to identify all of them easily, at least at the start of the work where they fuse together.
It is interesting to note the relationship between these two ‘ chords’, particularly the way that the orchestral chord avoids the pitches of the harmonic series except at the very top and bottom of the chord where notes are doubled (the low E at the bottom and the D and F#/Gb at the top). These connections further help to fuse the two sounds together, especially the attention given by the ear to highest (melodic) and lowest (bass) pitches in a musical texture.
Opening Orchestral Chord (i) and Harmonic Series on Low E (ii).
Figure 13.
The low E identified above, which is continuously present through the first four minutes of the piece and is structurally important throughout the whole work, can be seen both as creating a pedal-note or bass for the orchestral harmony (if a note-based view is used) but also as creating the fundamental frequency of a complex and constantly changing sound, the upper (inharmonic) partials of which are provided by the orchestral instruments and the harmonics of material type 2 (if viewed spectrally).
If the pitches of the opening orchestral chord are reordered, ignoring their octave positions, it will be seen that the chord is made up of most of the chromatic gamut, with only two pitches absent (fig. 14). Interestingly the two omitted pitches form the major and minor thirds above the ever-present low E pedal and their omission avoids creating any obvious tonal references in the orchestral sound at the start of the work. If this chord is looked at tonally it is possible to identify a number of factors which further help to reduce the sense of an E based tonality which might be suggested by this pedal note. The most obvious and strongest of these is found at the top of the orchestral chord where the notes Bb, D and F, which clearly outline a Bb major triad. This suggests a tonality very distant from E, although this is itself blurred somewhat with the addition of pitches a semitone above the F and a semitone below the Bb. The other main tonal suggestion which can be found in this chord aside from the intervals of thirds and sixths which give only weak tonal suggestions (B+D# suggesting B, C/C#+A suggesting A) is found in the notes A, D, F and F# which outline a second inversion D major/minor chord. Although this is entwined within the Bb chord identified above, the sense of a chord upon D is strengthened by the fact that the root note of the chord is placed in the same register as the seventh harmonic and as such is doubled by the tape sound. The aural prominence given to the D by this allows us to connect it back harmonically to the pedal note, over which it creates a seventh, further weakening a stable sense of E by creating a distant sense of a dominant seventh and its need for resolution.
The lack of chromatic character created by the near complete chromatic saturation of the opening chord suggests that the spacing of the chord and the resulting intervals between pitches are more important than individual pitches, supporting a more ‘ spectral’ view of the orchestral harmony. This view is supported by the tonal implications noted above which are the result of the voicing of this chord.
Pitch Content of Opening Orchestral Chord (and omitted pitches)
Figure 14.
An overview of the underlying orchestral pitch structure of the start of the work is given in figure 15a. This follows the listing given by the composer (Saariaho 1987), (including the repeated chord given for numbers 28 and 29) and extends it after chord number 40 to cover the whole of the first five minutes. Saariaho further details a process of pitch change whereby chords are gradually and incrementally saturated by a single interval from the bottom up:
I constructed a fundamental chord containing all the intervals. From this chord the harmony radiates in different directions in such a way that each time a different interval from the fundamental chord ends up occupying the totality of the vertical structure. (Saariaho 1987 p,122)
When a chord finally consists of a single interval, stacked-up, then it restarts the process, reforming a chord with a different interval. In an attempt to reveal this process, figure 15b reviews the opening chordal material given in figure 15a as intervals between chord notes. Even within the chords listed by Saariaho herself, it is not easy to identify the compositional process she discusses, except in a rather vestigial stage. The shaded figures identify common intervals (and their inversions) and show four blocks which appear to focus upon specific intervals. These move from the semitone (block 1) in the first instance, stepwise to the major third in the fourth block (block 4) and mirror the process of stepwise interval growth already noted in connection to the development of orchestral texture earlier (fig. 8, bar 39 onwards). Nowhere in this harmonic overview does there appear to be a chord made up of a single interval type, chord number 30 coming the closest, with a single semitone amongst the remaining tones and minor sevenths. This clearly illustrates the difference, referred to in part one of this study, between a compositional process (as detailed by the composer) and its actual final results.
What can be identified from this material are more general processes and changes. The opening orchestral chord is revoiced very gradually, with only one or two pitches changing at a time (chords 19 and 49 being the largest exceptions from this) and most of the pitch changes taking place towards the top of the chord. These changes gradually push the upper pitches of the chord higher, the top-most pitch climbing upward in an almost linear ascent, as shown in the graphic score. Figure 15c shows clearly the ascending nature of the upper parts of the chord but also reveals a less obvious descent, albeit much slower and less wide-ranging, in the lower notes of the chord above the ever-present low E.
The gradual changes which occur to this harmonic material do not happen at regular time intervals throughout the opening sections of the piece, as can be seen on the graphic score where their placement is indicated. Instead, harmonic changes occur irregularly but with a general tendency towards a higher rate of change as the piece progresses, the first minute having twelve chord changes, the fifth twenty seven. Throughout this, however, there are periods of harmonic stasis, where the harmony remains unchanged, and the time length of these actually increases as the piece progresses (these are indicated on fig.15a by the boxed chord numbers):
Chord number Time Length in Seconds
2 ------------------------ 11”
7 ------------------------ 14”
17 ------------------------ 10”
18 ------------------------ 13”
32 ------------------------ 19”
40 ------------------------ 18”
49 ------------------------ 20”
59 ------------------------ 19”
In contrast to this, in the areas of harmonic change around these static blocks there are groups of rapid harmonic change, often with changes every second or so. These groups also increase in length resulting in a process whereby the reasonably regular rate of change at the start becomes more characterised by extremes of stasis and rapid harmonic change. One effect of this very gradual, if irregular process of pitch change is to present the orchestral harmony much more as a slowly evolving sound or timbre, an idea much closer to an electroacoustic sound view, rather than anything to do with the contrasts and recognisable units of traditional functional harmony of a note-based view.
The gradual ascent identified above is the most obvious audible pitch process which occurs throughout this first section of the piece and is closely connected to the gestural structure. This is particularly true in the opening minute where each level 2 unit of segmentation is given a new pitch towards its start (f#, g, a), and later after 1’29” where each of the three parts of this segmentation unit are marked by a new pitch (b, c#, d#). The perhaps surprising importance of this simple pitch ascent is partly due to the absence of any other material which might be considered ‘melodic’ in the opening minute or so of the piece and its clear connection with the gestural structure, both of which draw the ear towards it. Even later on, after the examples given above, new pitches are always introduced clearly, marking some structural point, even if it is only small-scale. Indeed this climbing line is one of the main factors in the creation of tension and sense of progress within the repetitive attack sequence of the opening and the clearest aural indication of larger-scale organisation available in the opening minutes of Verblendungen.
The slow gradual melodic climb that occurs over these first four minutes of the piece is ended or at least given some sense of arrival at 4’ 11” (rehearsal letter L) . This is marked by three upward pitch sweeps through the orchestra, almost a high-speed recap of the piece so far, but this time the sweeps are across the entire pitch-space used up to this point, from the low bass E up to the treble D (rehearsal letter M). These pitch sweeps can be seen as a continuation of the process of pitch saturation begun in the composition of the opening chord and its augmentation of the harmonic series covering as they do scalically (with few gaps) the currently defined pitch space. These signal the first clear distinctions between harmony and melody identifiable in the piece (as shown in fig.15a) as well as marking the end of the first large scale section of the work in the shift from the opening onset to the continuant. They also signal new, more radical types of pitch change with strings having, en masse, glissandos between chords, in bars 89-92 and 93-96, (although an early ‘pre-echo’ of this can perhaps be seen in bars 13 and 28-30 in upper violins) which can clearly be connected to the scalic pitch-sweeps identified above, and the beginnings of a weakening of the power and importance of the low E pedal. By the end of the second pitch sweep (rehearsal letter N) the pitch space has become modified with clear space now existing between the low E and the evolving cluster of pitches high in the treble. This is a natural result of the continuation of the process of gradual upward expansion of the pitch-space previously identified and this point marks a change from a rooted to a canopied pitch-space. It also points forward to the eventual extinguishing of the pedal E and the accompanying shift in structural importance from low to high frequency. This is only realised fully at the very end of the piece.