Page 261 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Stravinsky was not the first twentieth-century composer to use ostinatos exten- sively—Debussy had done so earlier in his Impressionist scores. But Stravinsky employs them more often and for longer spans than did his predecessors. In The Rite of Spring, ostinatos give the music its incessant, motorized quality, espe- cially in the sections with fast tempos.
dissonant polychords
The harsh, biting sound that is heard throughout much of The Rite of Spring is of- ten created by two triads, or a triad and a seventh chord sounding at once. What results is a polychord (Figure 15.10)—the simultaneous sounding of one triad or seventh chord with another. When the individual chords of a polychord are only a whole step or a half step apart, the result is especially dissonant. In Example 15.8, the passage from the beginning of “Augurs of Spring,” a seventh chord built on E♭ is played simultaneously with a major triad built on F♭. This single chord succinctly expresses the primitive brutality of the pagan world that Stravinsky imagined.
Example 15.8 > polychord
&
bw bb w w
bw bw
? bw
= &bw &b w bw + bw
bb w bw
Ebseventh chord
Fbmajor triad
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Figure 15.10
In his Schemes of Paint-
ing (1922), the artist Albert Gleizes demonstrates that a Cubist work can be created by rotating a figure or line against itself, and then again and again until visual dissonance results. Similarly, a polychord is created by placing two or more triads or seventh chords off center and against one an- other, thereby creating aural dissonance. <
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