Those famous chords in the ninth's fourth movement.

[Enrique]

This is just before the baritone entrance:





I do not know anything about harmony, but I imagine this chord is the superposition of two simpler chords. I write the chord below in two staves. In the second measure I rewrite it without octave duplications.



If one adds one other third interval above (2nd measure; the chord in the 2nd measure is just the same chord written in a simpler way), the Bb is reached again. Well, from here on I will make laugh more than one reader. Only seven notes are employed, and they look like the notes of a D minor scale, which is precisely the tonality here. Can this not be interpreted as a dominant seventh chord (A, C#, E, G) superimposed on a Bb, D, F chord? But then this second chord is one on the 6th degree? I do not know, but could somebody explain, pleeeeeease?

[gprengel]

The E and G in your picture for the French Horns actually are not the real notes for the french horn and the clarinette are tuned differently. Actually we have here a normal d-minor chord and additionally a Bb which causes the great dissonance here!!!

[Sorrano]

The E and G in your picture for the French Horns actually are not the real notes for the french horn and the clarinette are tuned differently. Actually we have here a normal d-minor chord and additionally a Bb which causes the great dissonance here!!!

And the trumpets (trombe), as well....(you probably meant them instead of the clarinettes, which are in the concert pitch, A. In the piano reduction score that I have (Percy Goetschius) it appears to be a dominant 9th or 11th with some extra curricular tones. Note that it immediately resolves to the tonic, as though it were an apoggiatura (sic). The Don would have a better idea on that one.

[Enrique]

The E and G in your picture for the French Horns actually are not the real notes for the french horn and the clarinette are tuned differently.

Horns in D: they are written C - Mb. Hence the real notes are D - F. Horns in Bb: they are written G. Hence they sound F. I transposed correctly. Do not understand your objection.

[Peter]

The E and G in your picture for the French Horns actually are not the real notes for the french horn and the clarinette are tuned differently. Actually we have here a normal d-minor chord and additionally a Bb which causes the great dissonance here!!!

No - the E and G are in the second violins - I was hoping our semi-resident harmony professor, the illustrious Don Quijote would care to analyse the chord!

[Enrique]

I looked in the book Las sinfonías de Beethoven, by Ernesto de la Guardia: it is a quadruple apoggiatura on the sixth degree chord of D minor, as Sorrano had suggested. But I do not understand why quadruple. For me is only triple. Besides the following chord is I (D - F - A. So I would say it is a chord apoggiatura on I.

[Chris]

I think this is the classical music equivalent of the chord that starts off the Beatles' Hard Day's Night

[Enrique]

It would have been nice to see the score. If we take Beethoven's chord and transpose it one diminished fifth up we get



It's exactly what we would hear if the oboe, when giving the A, would mistakenly play an Eb. This is a possible spacing, which corresponds to one of the most famous musical passages in musical history:



Together with this rhythm, maybe some of you will know:

ta ta ta ta | ta ta ta ta | ta TA ta TA | ta ta ta ta | ta TA ta ta | TA ta ta ta | TA ta ta ta | ta TA ta ta |

[Peter]

It would have been nice to see the score. If we take Beethoven's chord and transpose it one diminished fifth up we get


It's exactly what we would hear if the oboe, when giving the A, would mistakenly play an Eb. This is a possible spacing, which corresponds to one of the most famous musical passages in musical history:



Together with this rhythm, maybe some of you will know:

ta ta ta ta | ta ta ta ta | ta TA ta TA | ta ta ta ta | ta TA ta ta | TA ta ta ta | TA ta ta ta | ta TA ta ta |

I think by Rites it's Stravinsky with a spring in his step!

[Enrique]

Bravo! Here is the orchestration:



Next time I won't do it so easy.

[Sorrano]

Very interesting observation, Enrique! Do you suppose that was a coincidence?

[Enrique]

Very interesting observation, Enrique! Do you suppose that was a coincidence?

I think that not any set of seven notes would match Beethoven's chord. There should be sets (chords) such that no inversion of the chord should match B's. For example, the same notes of B's chord but with the C natural instead of sharp I think would not fit. By the way, I found a description of Stravinsky's chord:

The first dance, "Augurs of Spring", is characterised by a repetitive stamping chord in the horns and strings, based on E-flat superimposed on an triad of E, G-sharp and B.[119] White suggests that this bitonal combination, which Stravinsky considered the focal point of the entire work, was devised on the piano, since the constituent chords are comfortable fits for the hands on a keyboard.

Another guy says

It consists of two clashing tonal components, an F-flat-major triad and an E-flat dominant seventh

.

I knew B's chord could be considered as politonal.

[Sorrano]

I wonder what role the limitations of timpani tuning had to do with the building of the chord. I note that the passage is initiated by an A (timpani) but when the string basses follow it is on the lower F.

[Enrique]

You are right. Though the timpani have the dominant, which was a good candidate for the chord.

[Peter]

You are right. Though the timpani have the dominant, which was a good candidate for the chord.

There is that amazing passage in the 1st movt of the 4th symphony (Bar 283-289) where Beethoven uses the tonic Bb in the timpani as the enharmonic equivalent of A# as written in the viola part. Beethoven arrives at this ambiguous F# harmony a few bars earlier in the first violins by altering the notation of Db Bb to C# A#.