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Stephanie Reusch Paper 2 Composers use several types of non-chord tones, each suggesting a different purpse. Surely, listeners distinguish between sections of music that have no non-chord tones and sections that have many. This suggests that there may be some sort of spectrum that defines the texture of the music based on its usage of non-chord tones. Perhaps a section with no non-chord tones would be considered “texturally stable” and perhaps a section with many non-chord tones would be considered “texturally unstable”. In his Piano Sonata in A minor (K310), Mozart’s treatment if non-chord tones cause contrast in textural stability in order to exaggerate certain formal functions. When writing in Sonata Form, composers of the classical period often write the first section of the exposition, “P”, with a very stable texture and a simpler harmonic texture than its following sections. In this Sonata, Mozart forms “P” in a sentence, and the sentence’s presentation would have a stable texture if it weren’t for a few simple alterations that Mozart made. In the first four bars, most of the notes in the melodic right hand all belong to the respective harmony in the left hand, with the exception of a few passing tones in the 3rd measure. However, Mozart chooses to insert dissonant grace notes, just instantaneously preceding the downbeat in measures 1, 2 and 4. Though seemingly small due to their incredibly small rhythmic value, these grace notes create an obvious, striking dissonance that disrupts the stability of the melody of the presentation of P. The grace notes in measures 2 and 4 are suspensions, perhaps creating a feeling of wanting to prolong the tonic harmony rather than moving to the dominant. Mozart adds one more non-chord tone to the presentation of “P”: the pedal “A” in the lowest voice of the left hand, again perhaps prolonging the idea of tonic during the dominant harmony. Because P is the first section of the piece, part of it’s function is to establish the key, so it’s no wonder that Mozart attempts to exaggerate and prolong the tonic with these nonchord tones. Though these non-chord tones certainly weaken the textural stability of the presentation, the listener still admires that the presentation is still quite texturally strong. However, perhaps all of these uncharacteristic non-chord tones in the presentation cause the continuation of P- though normally more texturally unstable than the presentation- to be exaggeratedly texturally unstable. Though the harmonic rhythm in continuations often accelerates from the harmonic rhythm in the presentation, the harmonic rhythm in this continuation is particularly fast in that it is somewhat sequential, but also has a sense of lagging as Mozart delays the arrival of the expected pitch or harmony using non-chord tones. On the downbeat of measure 6, the listener expects to hear either a d minor chord or a G major chord, which both are instead heard on beats 2 and 3 respectively. Instead, Mozart prolongs the top voice in the right hand and raise the 2nd voice in the right hand to create a sort of tonicizing sonority that also has elements of the lagging feeling, created by the prolongation of the top voice. Though this sonority technically isn’t a non-chord tone because it is the only sonority occurring at that point, it intrudes on what it is expected by the listener, making it a sort of potential non-chord sonority. Mozart ends the continuation with a very texturally stable measure 8 that contains no non-chord tones as if the measure is trying to make up for all the non-chord tones and unexpectedness in other measure, and the very texturally stable ending to “P” gives the music confidence to start “TR”. Though P ends stably, the listener should not forget that the non-chord tones in the presentation slightly shook its textural stability in order to prolong the tonic, influencing the continuation of P to delay the arrival of expected harmonies, consequently make P abnormally less texturally stable than it often is. The strong and texturally stable ending of P leads cadences into to the beginning of TR, as if the strength of the cadence allowed the music to keep going and try again. TR starts with the same dissonant grace note as P, in fact, Mozart writes the beginning of TR to essentially identical to the beginning of P, save for some embellishing passing tones. When TR begins to modulate in measure 12, one would expect a less stable texture, but this measure is actually the most stable texture the listener has encountered so far. This measure corresponds to measure 4, but the harmony has switched to an F dominant 7th chord and thus the pitches have been changed. This time, the dissonant grace note is written into the music as an eighth note and is actually a C that moves down to B flat, which are both in the F dominant 7th chord. It is strange that Mozart decided to start a modulation in TR with such a clear harmonic texture, especially because it is more stable that the tonic sections of TR. The texture becomes less and less stable until the music starts standing on the dominant. Suspensions return in measure 13 and 14. In measure 14, the harmonic rhythm speeds up to a sort of mini-circle of fifths sequence in the left hand, but the right hand does not quite keep up. At first the right hand is a half beat behind the left hand due to a suspension on the downbeat, and on beat 3, the listener expects the F from beat two (the seventh of the chord) to resolve down to an E, the third of the outlined C major chord. However, Mozart instead tries to embellish the expected E by tonicizing it with a D#, however because the right hand is later than the left, Mozart does not resolve to the expected E until beat four, leaving the D# placed during beat three. Strangely, D# is enharmonically equivalent to E-flat, so the sonority heard during beat three sounds like a C minor chord instead of the expected C major chord. Perhaps Mozart creates this very loose, incredibly syncopated almost polyrhythmic texture with tonicizing non-chord tones and suspensions to exaggerate the modulating function of TR, especially by the extremely fast sequence seen in measure 14. Perhaps he created a sonority enharmonically equivalent to a c minor chord to foreshadow that the rest of TR is in C minor. Mozart then stands on the dominant from measures 16-22 to emphasize how the TR has modulated to C minor. During measures 16-22, Mozart reminds the listener of the presentation of P by repeating the same rhythmic motive found in the first three beats of P. Here, the few non-chord tones that are present function as embellishing notes, surrounding the note “G” to emphasize the dominant. One would probably describe the end of TR to be very texturally stable because of its limited amount of syncopation, the clarity of its harmony and the tonicizing function of its few non-chord tones. One might notice that the ends of both P and TR are the strongest texturally stable sections the listener has heard so far in this piece. One might notice that P and TR both start out texturally stable with the exception of some suspensions that delay resolution, then they both have a very loose and unstable continuation followed by an incredibly strong and texturally stable ending. Perhaps Mozart adds non-chord tones that almost sound like mistakes to represent mistakes in a performance, causing the continuation of phrases to be looser and less texturally stable as a result of loss of confidence due to the mistakes made, only to cause the ending of these formal functions to be strong enough to try again and start a new phrase. The texture during S of the exposition changes drastically. A simple bass line of eighth notes and quarter notes all containing chord tones dictate the harmony, but Mozart creates an incredibly busy texture in the right hand by writing a constant stream of 16th notes filled with just as many non-chord tones as chord tones, if not more. Most of the non-chord tones seem to be neighbor notes and they typically are not placed on the downbeat. It seems as if Mozart had a melody in mind for the right hand that contained mostly chord tones but the adding of so many neighbor notes (sometimes there are 3 neighbor non-chord tones for every 1 chord tone) seems almost as if the pianist isn’t sure exactly which note to hit, so he or she hits all of the notes around. This imprecision seems to again cause more textural instability in the antecedent or beginning part of the phrase. In the continuation, the bass line is no longer concise eighth notes, but rather an ambiguous sequence made up of suspensions that modulates to F major in measure 31, only to become once again more texturally stable in measure 32 in order to cadence back into C major. In measure 32, the bass line becomes a steady stream of arpeggiating 16th notes, and though there are non-chord tones in the right hand, the ratio of chord tones to non-chord tones is much higher, and the non-chord tones are generally consonant with the bass line. As one might notice, S follows the pattern of a somewhat texturally stable beginning, texturally unstable middle and a very texturally stable end just like P and TR, however all sections are relatively more texturally unstable than the corresponding sections in P and TR. Perhaps here Mozart is trying to exaggerate how S needs not to be as tight-knit as P. One also notices Mozart’s exaggeration of how S is more loosely knit in the second phrase in S, where he also uses very many neighbor tones as well as having a loosely knit 5-measure phrase structure. In the C section of the exposition at measure 44, Mozart reminds the listener of the presentation of P by imitating the initial motive again. However, though he reminds the listener of stability by doing this, he also reminds the listener of the instable bass line of running 16th notes, this time suggesting new harmonies. Rather than just tonic and dominant harmonies like at P, the running 16th notes create new harmonies that exaggerate cadential motion, thus here Mozart uses what earlier would have been considered non-chord tones to create a texture that exaggerates the cadential function of C. Mozart splits the development of this piece into 3 separate sections. He derives the first section from TR, this time in C major, and again tries to modulate to F. However, a dominant 7th chord in F is enharmonically equivalent to a German 6/5 chord in E, so Mozart ends the first section by modulating to E using a German 6/5 chord. Non-chord tones affect the textural stability here just as it did in the beginning of TR. The second section of the transition occurs from measures 57 to 69 and consists of 3 sequences. Each sequence begins with an introduction measure containing the same rhythmic quote of the motif from the beginning of P then moves on to the sequence. During each sequence, the left hand keeps a steady stream of 16th notes that repeat the dominant of the key suggested by the German 6/5 chord preceding this section. This pedal has one chromatic neighbor non-chord tone in it, weakening the textural stability, but the pedal itself prolongs the dominant harmony. Each downbeat of every measure in the sequence contains a suspension, and these suspensions are resolved and then tonicized by chromatic neighbor tones. This creates a very unstable texture with a lot of neighbor tones all at once, perhaps the most unstable section of this piece, as developments often are. The first sequence resolves into E major, which resolves to A major, which resolves to d minor, sort of creating a giant descending 5ths macrosequence created from 3 smaller sequences. The goal of this section of a development is to get to a far out point (which seems to be d minor), and by modulating to so many keys using so many sequences, Mozart has exaggerated the function of this section once again. Mozart’s use of non-chord tones that delay resolution along with non-chord tones that tonicize and emphasize resolution seems almost as if he tonicizes the resolution in order to make up for the delay of it. This idea is similar to the pattern seen in the exposition with the closing section being extremely texturally strong in order to make up for the continuation’s textural instability. The last section of the development begins at measure 69 and again starts with a sequence that leads into standing on the dominant in measure 73 until the recapitulation starts in measure 79. The function of this section of the development is to navigate back to the home key of A minor so that the recapitulation can start. This section starts somewhat texturally unstable because of the use of neighbor and passing tones in the bass. This instability along with the looser knit phrase structure involving a sequence exaggerates the motion of getting back to the tonic key. However, once Mozart reaches the tonic key in measure 72, the textural stability grows stronger because the right hand arpeggiates the harmony suggested by the left hand. In measure 78, what seems to be a lead in to the recapitulation, Mozart uses chromatic passing tones to emphasize the dominant harmony that has the function of leading to the tonic harmony. In this section, Mozart’s treatment of non-chords exaggerate the dominant harmony which has the function of leading back to the original key. In the recapitulation, the listener notices that Mozart treats P the same was as in the exposition because they are identical. However, TR in the recapitulation has the opposite function of TR in the exposition: not to modulate. Though, because Mozart appropriately uses similar melodic material from the exposition, it is almost more difficult to not modulate, thus the harmonic structure of this section is more sequential than in TR in the exposition. Even more suspensions are used and more resolutions are tonicized (such as in measures 91 and 92). After the crux in measure 96, the texture is much more stable, as it were in the TR in the exposition, as Mozart writes few non-chord tones and stands on the dominant. Mozart makes a subtle but important distinction during S in the recapitulation that differs from S in the exposition. In measure 103 (which corresponds with measure 23), rather than putting static 8th notes in the bass, Mozart switches between tonic and dominant harmony each eighth note. In the exposition, when their used to be so many neighbor tones in this section, some of the neighbor tones are actually a part of the harmony now, making the texture more stable. Perhaps because the recapitulation’s function is partially to end the piece, Mozart is preparing for a stable ending. In measure 108, the texture once again becomes more unstable as the same strange harmonic sequential structure comes back from the exposition. Mozart treats the rest of S in the recapitulation the same as the exposition, however he precedes C in the recapitulation and delays the EEC with a vii diminished 4/3 of i chord and a vii diminished 4/2 chord of V followed by a V chord that cadences to i in measure 129. Mozart’s emphasis on non-chord tones is clear from the beginning of this Sonata as he begins a tritone away from the tonic. Throughout the entire piece he develops his treatment of them so as to exaggerate and categorize certain formal functions.