Saturday, October 20, 2018

How "Negative Harmony" is used in many romantic composition conclusions

Negative Harmony, Explained”, by “Creativity eXplained”, or “Why does this chord sound so good?”

The video starts with the opening of a Chopin Nocturne in A-flat. But pretty soon it explains the roles of dominant and subdominant chords in western music.

He gives a chart based on symmetry around the dominant chord that explains the relationship between natural major and minor modes.
Very often, triumphant conclusions of major symphonic works use a subdominant chord with the sixth note of the scale flattened, to a subdominant minor, before the final loud tonic major.  A good example is the end of Scriabin’s “Divine Poem” (Sept. 14, 2018).  The video explains this effect with the concepts of “modal interchange” and “negative harmony”.

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