Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1
2 1 HISTORY
temperament were developed. This parallel 6/3 triad was incorporated into the contra-
In early western polyphony, these simpler intervals (uni- puntal style at the time, in which parallel fourths were
son, octave, fth and fourth) were generally preferred. sometimes considered problematic, and written around
However, in its development between the 12th and 16th with ornaments or other modications to the Fauxbour-
centuries: don style. An example of this is the start of the Marian-
Antiphon Ave Maris Stella ( Listen) by Guillaume Du-
fay, a master of Fauxbourdon.
1. In the earliest stages, these simple intervals occur so
frequently that they appear to be the favourite sound
of composers. 1.2 Renaissance and Baroque
2. Later, the more complex intervals (thirds, sixths,
and tritones) move gradually from the margins to the The development of tonality continued through the
centre of musical interest. Renaissance until it was fully realized at last by composers
of the Baroque era.
3. By the end of the Middle Ages, new rules for voice
leading had been laid, re-evaluating the importance
of unison, octave, fth and fourth and handling them
in a more restricted fashion (for instance, the later
forbidding of parallel octaves and fths).
The music of the 20th century for the most part discards
the rules of classical western tonality. For instance,
composers such as Erik Satie borrowed stylistic elements
from the Middle Ages, but some composers found more
innovative uses for these intervals.
Conventional closing cadences
1.1 Middle ages As time progressed through the late Renaissance and
early Baroque, the fourth became more understood as
In medieval music, the tonality of the common practice an interval that needed resolution. Increasingly the har-
period had not yet developed, and many examples may be monies of fths and fourths yielded to uses of thirds and
found with harmonic structures that are built on fourths sixths. In the example, cadence forms from works by
and fths. The Musica enchiriadis of the mid 10th cen- Orlando di Lasso and Palestrina show the fourth being
tury, a guidebook for musical practice of the time, de- resolved as a suspension. ( Listen)
scribed singing in parallel fourths, fths, and octaves. In the early Baroque music of Claudio Monteverdi and
This development continued, and the music of the Notre Girolamo Frescobaldi triadic harmony was thoroughly
Dame school may be considered the apex of a coherent utilized. Diatonic and chromatic passages strongly outlin-
harmony in this style. ing the interval of a fourth appear in the Lamento genre,
and often in Passus duriusculus passages of chromatic de-
scent. In the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi and Carlo
Gesualdo the intensive interpretation of the text (Word
painting) frequently highlights the shape of a fourth as
an extremely delayed resolution of a fourth suspension.
Also, in Frescobaldis Chromatic Toccata of 1635 the out-
lined fourths overlap, bisecting various church modes.
Fourths in Guillaume Du Fays Antiphon Ave Maris Stella In the rst third of the 18th century, ground-laying
theoretical treatises on composition and harmony were
For instance, in one Alleluia ( Listen) by Protin, the written. Jean-Philippe Rameau completed his treatise
fourth is favoured. Elsewhere, in parallel organum Le Trait de l'harmonie rduite ses principes naturels
at the fourth, the upper line would be accompanied (French: the theory of harmony reduced to its natural
a fourth below. Also important was the practice of principles) in 1722 which supplemented his work of four
Fauxbourdon, which is a three voice technique (not in- years earlier, Nouveau Systme de musique theoretique
frequently improvisatory) in which the two lower voices (French: new system of music theory); these together
proceed parallel to the upper voice at a fourth and sixth may be considered the cornerstone of modern Music the-
below. Fauxbourdon, while making extensive use of ory relating to consonance and harmony. The Austrian
fourths, is also an important step towards the later triadic composer Johann Fux published in 1725 his powerful
harmony of tonality, as it may be seen as a rst inversion treatise on the composition of Counterpoint in the style
(or 6/3) triad. of Palestrina under the title Gradus ad Parnassum (Latin:
1.4 20th century music 3
The Steps to Parnassus). He outlined various types of Fourth-based harmony became important in the work of
counterpoint (e.g., note against note), and suggested a Slavic and Scandinavian composers such as Modest Mus-
careful application of the fourth so as to avoid dissonance. sorgsky, Leo Janek, and Jean Sibelius. These com-
posers used this harmony in a pungent, uncovered, al-
most archaic way, often incorporating the Folk music of
1.3 Classical and Romantic their particular homelands. Sibelius Piano Sonata in F-
Major op. 12 of 1893 used tremolo passages of near-
The blossoming of tonality and the establishment of well quartal harmony in a way that was relatively hard and
temperament in Bachs time both had a continuing in- modern. Even in the example on the right from Mus-
uence up to the late Romantic period, and the tenden- sorgskys piano-cycle Pictures at an Exhibition (
cies towards quartal harmony were somewhat suppressed. (-) - The Hut on Fowls Legs)
An increasingly rened cadence, and triadic harmony de- ( Listen) the fourth always makes an unvarnished en-
ned the musical work of this era. Counterpoint was sim- trance.
plied to favour an upper line with a clear accompany-
The Romantic composers Frdric Chopin and Franz
ing harmony. Still, there are many examples of dense
Liszt, had use the special thinned out sound of fourth-
counterpoint utilizing fourths in this style, commonly as
chord in late works for piano (Nuages gris (Fr: Grey
part of the background urging the harmonic expression
Clouds), La lugubre gondola (Fr: The Mournful Gon-
in a passage along to a climax. Mozart in his so-called
dola), and other works).
Dissonance Quartet KV 465 ( Listen) used Chromatic
and Whole tone scales to outline fourths, and the sub- In the 1897 work The Sorcerers Apprentice (L'Apprenti
ject of the fugue in the third movement of Beethovens sorcier) by Paul Dukas, the repetition of rising fourths
Piano sonata op. 110 ( Listen) opens with three ascend- is a musical representation of the tireless work of out-
ing fourths. These are all melodic examples, however, of-control walking brooms causes the water level in the
and the underlying harmony is built on thirds. house to rise and rise. Quartal harmony in Ravels
Sonatine and Ma Mre l'Oye (Fr: Mother Goose) would
Composers started to reassess the quality of the fourth
follow a few years later.
as a consonance rather than a dissonance. This would
later inuence the development of quartal and quintal har-
mony. 1.4 20th century music
1.4.1 Western classical music
in particular La cathdrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathe- [4] William Drabkin (2001), Fourth, The New Grove Dic-
dral) from his Prludes for piano, Pour les quartes (For tionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by
Fourths) and Pour les arpges composes (For Composite Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmilln Pub-
Arpeggios) from his Etudes. lishers).
2 See also
augmented fourth
All fths
Lists of intervals
eleventh
chromatic fourth
3 References
[1] William Smith and Samuel Cheetham (1875). A Dictio-
nary of Christian Antiquities. London: John Murray.
4.2 Images
File:AveMarisStellaDufay.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/AveMarisStellaDufay.png License: Cc-by-sa-
3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Baby_Yaga_for_wikipedia.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Baby_Yaga_for_wikipedia.png
License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Barretto_Amor_Artificial.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Barretto_Amor_Artificial.png Li-
cense: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). Original
artist: No machine-readable author provided. Bottomline~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims).
File:Bartok{}s_fourths.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Bartok%27s_fourths.png License: GFDL
Contributors: Created by Hyacinth (talk) using Sibelius 5. Original artist: Hyacinth (talk) (Uploads)
File:Fourth_ET.ogg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Fourth_ET.ogg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0 Contributors:
Own work
Original artist:
Gary Adams (User:SoundOfNumbers)
File:Gnome-mime-sound-openclipart.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/
Gnome-mime-sound-openclipart.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work. Based on File:Gnome-mime-audio-openclipart.
svg, which is public domain. Original artist: User:Eubulides
File:II_V_I_for_wikipedia.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/II_V_I_for_wikipedia.png License:
CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Loudspeaker.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Loudspeaker.svg License: Public domain Contrib-
utors: New version of Image:Loudspeaker.png, by AzaToth and compressed by Hautala Original artist: Nethac DIU, waves corrected by
Zoid
File:Maiden_Voyage2.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Maiden_Voyage2.png License: CC-BY-SA-
3.0 Contributors: Herbie Hancock, edited by Boris Fernbacher2 09:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC) Original artist: Original by Boris Fernbacher,
translation by Rainwarrior. Maiden Voyage originally composed by Herbie Hancock, 1965.
File:Nascimento_Vera_Cruz.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Nascimento_Vera_Cruz.png License:
CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Notenbeispiel_Quarten.gif Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Notenbeispiel_Quarten.gif License:
Public domain Contributors: Transferred from ru.wikipedia to Commons by Rubin16 using CommonsHelper. Original artist: The orig-
inal uploader was MaratL at Russian Wikipedia
File:Perfect_fourth_on_C.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Perfect_fourth_on_C.png License: Pub-
lic domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: Created by Hyacinth (talk) using Sibelius 5.
File:Ravel_Ma_Mere_l'Oye_Laideronnette.PNG Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Ravel_Ma_Mere_
l%27Oye_Laideronnette.PNG License: Public domain Contributors: Illustration of quartal harmony in Laideronnette from Maurice
Ravel's (18751937) Ma Mre l'Oye (1910). Original artist: Created by Hyacinth (talk) 18:39, 14 July 2005 using Sibelius 5.
File:Renaissance_Kadenz_for_wikipedia.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Renaissance_Kadenz_
for_wikipedia.png License: Public domain Contributors: Palestrina and Lasso Original artist: Boris Fernbacher2
File:Schoenberg{}s_fourths.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Schoenberg%27s_fourths.png Li-
cense: GFDL Contributors: Created by Hyacinth (talk) using Sibelius 5. Original artist: Hyacinth (talk) (Uploads)
File:Schoenberg_string_quartet_quartal_chord.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Schoenberg_
string_quartet_quartal_chord.png License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors: Created by Hyacinth (talk) using Sibelius 5. Original artist:
Schoenberg
File:TristanChord.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/TristanChord.svg License: Public domain Con-
tributors: Own work Original artist: Romainbehar
File:Wagner_Tristan_opening_(orchestral).ogg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Wagner_Tristan_
opening_%28orchestral%29.ogg License: EEF OAL-1 Contributors: ? Original artist: ?