The day Beethoven broke G Major
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
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In his 4th piano concerto, Beethoven manages to make a tonic G Major chord feel unstable and unresolved. In this video I analyse the harmonic and motivic forces he employs to achieve this effect, and how this moment ultimately affects the structure and form of the entire movement.
0:00 Intro
0:34 Elements to remember
5:03 Analysis
7:24 Structural consequences
I suspect it's because Beethoven just told us 7 times in the preceding 3 bars that B over G major resolves downwards to A over D major, so we expect him to do it again and he makes us wait for it.
so the idea, that was proposed in this video
This music is so much beyond words. There's no way to explain what the music is telling. The simple harmonic structure on one hand and the deep feeling it provokes in the listener on the other. This concerto is such a miracle.
I think that what happens when he pauses on G major for an entire bar is that he moves so much from G to D that the D becomes the new tonic of the tonality. In other words, the I-V motion in G becomes a IV-I in D, but in reality, it's just G major.
That’s what my ears hear as well, and there’s such a melodically ingrained tendency at this point for that B to fall a whole tone that it doesn’t feel stable as the upper voice.
But how does he make the plagal cadence a stronger gesture than a proper V-I? That’s definitely done here by means of rhythm.
@JulesStoop movements by a 4th and 5th have the same amount of tension, but the contexts make them feel stronger or weaker. That's why, and yes, rhythm contributes largely as well.
I think the 4th is his best piano concerto
The quality of your videoes (especially the clear scores that are easy to follow etc.) really makes you stick out. Great work - you definitely earned another subscriber!
The 4th concerto is one of thebmost underrated concertos out there.
The way you analyse Beethoven provides me a gateway to understanding why I love the music so much. I have some music theory knowledge, but I’m no expert 👍
Same here.
OH MY. I can't tell you how much I've been wanting something like this in my musical life! I've been listening to classical for 25 years, even inspired enough to take up the cello to grade 7 standard (lol), but I have always been frustrated at the absences of this type of analysis of the ARTISTRY in the music. Read all sorts of books; liner notes to CDs; and program notes to concerts and it's always the same biographical stories you've already heard a million times before (Heiligenstadt testament, anyone?). But the analysis of the artistry is so compelling: "Why this and not that? Why this works how it does", it really serves to deepen your appreciation of the music. Thank you so much, look forward to more, and I hope one day we'll journey to the summit of the Late Quartets.
Nicely done. Another element I think you should discuss is the focus on the third scale degree in the melodic line throughout the concerto. I think it's a major enabler of the harmonic instability you point out so revealingly, always softening the impact of the major chord. It's the first melody note we hear (B of the G chord) in the piano, and then it's the pivot to the wonderful B-major response from the orchestra, as you point out. It's a prominent melodic feature of both the first and third movements. The fact that the transition from the second to the third movements is also a descending third (from E minor to C major) and that the first theme of the 3rd movement is centered melodically on the third of the chord are also indications of how significant the use of the third scale degree in the melody is in B's scheme. And the very last chord in the piano part of the finale has the third as its top note! None of that, I'm sure, is by accident.
Fascinating, thank you! I had only ever paid attentation to that key change when the orchestra sets in (which I absolutely love) and hadn’t realized how much is going on right after that
Nice video. I liked your style of discussing only a particular point, rather than an entire piece. And your animations are good.
Love the explanation and graphics. Thank you.
I love your style of analysis in this video. I don't think I have ever understood something so clearly in a video before this. Keep up the good work!
Merci. While it’s beyond my musical levels, you have given food for thought. Actually you’ve provided a feast.
The modulation to A minor directly from a Dmaj chord is the most striking thing about that passage. Also, that Eb part is interesting, could be seen as the inverted reply to the Bmaj, and/or a typical augmented (flat)6th (implied), resolving down to the V, which is what happens. Also of note throughout the whole concerto is the tritone, a prominent character. By far my fav of Beethoven's concertos.
Fantastic analysis!
Thanks for this lovely insightful video. You have created a new view of the fourth which has aleays been one of my favourites.
Really beautifully put
super! you explained why it has always been my favorite piece of music in musical terms. i had always understood it in poetical terms very well... inspired me for decades. and brendal's album also includes 32 variations on a theme in c# minor. that album changed my life.
I've always had this feeling regarding this particular chord, but never knew why. Thank you for this brilliant explanation! You might be the Charles Cornell of Classical Music :D Would love to see more videos like this!
It is an interesting take but I'd be hesitant to agree, I do not think it resolves to D major at all and from the isolated harmonic context I doubt anyone would expect a D major, I believe that what makes it so full of tension is primarily the voicing with the third on top meaning we haven't heard the tonic in the melody yet, and then it isn't given to us. The cadence is imperfect and as such it doesn't feel that stable to us, if he were to have voiced it with the G on top it would have sounded like the tonic without a shadow of a doubt, and I believe the "resolution" is found by simply dropping a third down to the tonic in the melody, but he goes on.
I believe this is very clearly demonstrated by listening for the root in the chord, doing this immedietly makes the chord feel less tense, and I certainly feel that the D major chord is much more tense than the G, because it is in this harmonic system.
Again it is an interesting take but I would drag myself to say that this is breaking G major.
thank you. i was thinking the exact same thing but you've put it into words very nicely.
Nice job! It makes you want to go listen to the whole concerto.
Fantastic analysis! I love your videos. Keep it up 🙂👍🎵
In the 50s my mother had a 78 rpm recording of this concerto. There was a small bit broken off the outside edge, so the first intact groove was the orchestra entrance, apparently in B major, which modulates to G. I didn’t know the beginning of the story for a few more years. That B chord told me to pay attention to what it becomes-2nd movt e minor.
Charles Rosen’s books are wonderful, as was his playing.
The reason that the G Major chord needs the resolution is because the melody is directed toward the A, consequently directing the chord toward D major chord that supports it.
look forward to seeing what this channel holds for the future
I've learned more in the last 10 minutes than I ever did at school. Much appreciation!
I wore out my record of Clibern with Reiner...love this concerto
Really well done commentary very insightful analysis of the music, excellent!!!!!!
I've been just thinking about how you could make an entire series about uncanny non-dissonant chords in Beethoven. Quite fascinating.
Charles Rosen had talked about this effect in his book about the Classical Era and Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven. (Edit: the very book you showed at 6:30) I have used this effect in a critical point in my composition too (although not at the start, but in a transition to the tonic in the development section, in a key previously stably established but now it's time to leave behind)
The entire concerto is harmonically unstable until the very end where he assures us this has been g major then entire time.
Thank you for this
Such an underrated concerto for sure, I listened to Glenn Gould's concerto recordings and somehow the first movement of the fourth concerto stuck out for me
that Eb to G is nothing short of amazing. how??
I'm just an old blind Bebop upright bass player so my ears are broken as to what sounds distant incontinent to many people. But I actually think that the dominant is called dominant for a reason. Because if you look at the natural harmonic series, it is more a dominant chord, not just a major triad that is the first Harmony you encounter
Or maybe think of it as the pieces in D7 and the G is the four chord
You earned a sub!
Imagine trying to play jazz while getting this elated over basic modal interchange of triads in an adjacent key.
2:20 he just made a cromathic mediant modulationg they will be very common in the following romantic era.
Chromatic mediant modulation. Is that it?
Or a phrase modulation both often used by beethoven
Love this
Your description of “music that exists in a thought bubble” perfectly encapsulates how I feel about that e minor passage from the Eroica, which is the only place we get respite from the relentless forward motion of the first movement. It’s interesting here that in stabilizing G major in the recapitulation by a same-tone modulation from Eb Major, Beethoven is basically reversing the same-tone modulation from G major to B Major in the introduction.
I'm not an expert in music and I don't know a lot of english either so I'll do my best to explain myself. It doesn't seem surprising to me that first inversion of tonic chord resolves well to a second inversion of the dominant chord. A double step down in the circle of fifths feels resolving anyway (like going from Em to D) so in this case we have a G/B chord working as an Em chord in which the tonic of Em is substituted by the dominant of G/B that doesn't move (all the other notes move a step down and we can strictly say that the D is a consonant anticipation) and, althogh the fact that the chord actually is G (reinforced by the bass) it should feel like a two steps down (from Em to D) which is quite resolving.
I don't know... I'm almost self-taught in harmony.
I don't hear it resolving to the dominant. It's built tension with all those triplets but when it hits that G/B it's wanting to pass through bass B to A then to G. We get B to A but then it fails to resolve at all.
Yeah beethoven just poorly resolved the phrase, nothing more than that. He never was a genius, what looks to be genius from beethoven is just errors that amateurs constantly make.
Who's the real genius? (Sam) The Genius or the genius who recognizes and can analyze & understand the true genius? (Sam)
Muito bom. Muito bom. Obrigo.
subscribed!
Another factor that destabilizes the chord is the chromaticism in the orchestral interlude, especially the C-sharps in the bass line. While I tend to agree that the piece has not really modulated to D by the time we hit the chord, the chromaticism has already destabilized tonality away from G to a degree.
For me the G chord sounds resolved idk, cool video nevertheless
... and I still hear G as the tonic
Because this guy is a quack who knows nothing about music
Please make videos on Mozart piano concerti.
If you enjoyed Rosen, try Tovey, and, Hopkins!
Melody / voice leading beats harmony, ear has been conditioned to expect (C)-B-A, there could be any fitting chords below...
Wonderfull work thank you! I was wating so much to hear the secund theme but it is quite smart not to have put it😅😅 . Btw this kind of paradox makes me think about the final chord of the 13th nocturne of Chopin in C minor. The last three last chords are proper c minor chord and the very last is identical to the two other EXEPT.... he adds a G betwin the two C of the bass octave... so the final chord is more stable in some sens, but as it contrast with the two other by this only adjonction, it make the effect of some kind of ghosty unresolution within the most solid stability possible, and this contrapunctical semi-cadency that is just a ...suggestion, is zlso kind of a question , like why? (Why human are you so stupid doing wars when I (-Chopin, or the nocturne) exist (or existed just now on your ears)😅😅😅😢
The lack of an Authentic Cadence
"Huge innovation" - ?!?!?
Mozart K 271.
It feels like someone who's trying to say something and nervously gets to the point before they intended to, then second-guesses themself, apologises and changes the subject rather than address what they just said. Extremely evocative use of rhythm, voice-leading and playing on audience expectations.
Delayed expectation (of the half cadence)
Ok. But I can not avoid the sensation that if thinking about the names of all those things I am putting together in a composition could lead to a Beethoven's concerto, there would be a lot of Beethoven's concertos being composed every day. I read Beethoven to learn some of his piano sonatas, and that material seems to me something between manually mechanical and graphically geometric. The score tells me how the piece was composed, note by note, even unknowing the names of tonalities, intervals, modes, modulations et cetera. And then, when note by note are ready to repeat like speaking, becomes the time to give them expression. And then, I am sorry, harmony rules are still less useful...
I like the metashift: Beethovens I - V - I sounds so kind of dull/dumb and music is already so advanced, you already can tell its about something else, but still cant tell, whats about to come and this is where the composers beauty shines. That plagal transition to a minor is so great. But without hearing the development section that third time theme doesnt make sense for my ear. And one last thing i want to add: the very opening section is in my opinion meant to psycologically outline the effect of the syntonic and the pythagorean comma. Guess where!
der beethoven war ein architekt, kein melodischer mensch aber einer der grössten komponisten, er konnte noten so zusammenstellen
und so die grössten meisterwerke zusammenbauen die es in der welt der musik gibt, anders als schubert, mein lieblingskomponist, unser franzl halt, Monteverdi, Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, they prepared the way for the following composers, please don´t give me sh... this is only my opinion
G augmanted?
yes
*Terrible resolution of a phrase*
Title: ThE dAy BeEtHoVeN bRoKe G mAjOr
It’s not a tonic, it is a neighbour chord for the dominant, a secondary subdominant you could say, a IV to D major, the V in G. So it is not that special or groundbreaking.
I view it more as an half cadence waiting to resolve on the V
Sure, but the weird part is that we interpret the G chord as an applied subdominant without any harmonic preparation. The reason for that is a combination of the melodic line (which wants to fall through A to G) and the rhythm/articulation, which implies this is a resolution (because in Classical convention, dissonance is often placed on the beat as a appoggiatura). I think that, functionally, the G chord is not a G chord at all, but a cadential 6/4. This would make the chord progression V6/4-5/3 - vi, a pretty normal Classical interrupted cadence. The only problem with this analysis is that a V6/4 should have a D in the root. The G-D motion in the bass is what makes it feel like a plagal cadence.
@@rdd90 well Beethoven is famous for not always following the rules of harmony and counterpoint so i think it's possible that instead of the cadential 6/4 he used a normel root position G chord, also i still hear it as a half cadence personaly o think that the vi chord is just the beginning of another period that overlaps the endig of the sentence before with this analysis the vi chord isn't part of the cadence but could be spimply a phrase modulation.
What’s so interesting about that one bar G major chord is that it ‘wants’ to go to in D to begin with, since usually, it’s the other way around from the dominant (D) to the tonic (G). We are in G major, but somehow the passage makes us feel like we’re developing into D only with the use of V-I progressions. It’s probably expectation, but still, why does that G major chord not feel like a resolution? A minor feels like the actual resolution there, which is quite absurd from a music theory standpoint. I geus Beethoven really defied G major and broke music theory along with it
While 15 million on TH-cam here are watching Taylor Swift and whatever, other uber-wealthy, famous nobodies, a few thousand are watching this.
I'm glad to be in the minority, don't you!
Cheers 🥂
i put beethoven down below with mozart. drab uninspired nonsense orchestrated by powdered wigs who know nothing about life. debussy on the other hand, bach, gershwin, van dyke parks. those are the real greats. beethoven is loved because he was born without ears. amazing! what an incredible musician!
What
@@vittoriosommese i mean it. and have stated such since i was a kid. got in trouble time and again with the music teachers insisting its beethoven and mozart who define serious music. no, mozart ate his own poo and beethoven beat women. their music is utter drat and its genuinely frustrating reading all these regressive ignorant conservative comments. gershwin makes beethoven sound like vanilla ice in comparison. bach is the only good powdered wig. the only one worth listening to.
how… unfortunate of a conviction to have
@@jennydeaf9O9 ok, I really hope you're trolling, not because you dislike Beethoven and Mozart (which is possible), but because your motives are absurd
@@jennydeaf9O9 Gershwin had an attention deficit problem with his concert music, didn't develop ideas very well. A few bars of something interesting, then it's on to the next thing, and so on.
Of course it doesn't resolute properly because it has the third on top... What a pointless analysis.
No. I see your point but several pieces end with the third on top and it feels conclusive. It’s not a pointless analysis in any way. Beethoven did do a little bit of a magic trick here and it’s glorious.
Every part of the music save for the actual base note indicates it is a cadential 6/4 chord. Play a G major chord with G on top after the D major chord, and *you will hear* the meaning of the word "tonic"
@@KirkWaiblinger Are you answering to me or the other guy?
@@brunotheiss1 There's no "magic trick". In this context the third on top doesn't resolute properly because there is a cadential passage before it that makes you expect a G on top, it's very simple. People like to glorify and overthink everything the great composers did even when it's something trivial.
@@0xdeadbeef975 I am agreeing with you
One can modulate the mode by vſing phꝛaſing and rhythm and harmonic rhythm. It is a modulation to the relatiue mixolydian.
I actually did ſomething ſimilar is a recent piece I compoſed on my channel: it is Pſalm 1 put to muſicke. It is in C maioꝛ, and without any accidentals in the whole piece, it gradually vſeth harmonic rhythm as well as the melodic rhythm and the half diminiſhed 7th choꝛd on B to end the piece firmly in E Phꝛygian, without any feeling that there needeth to be a reſolution to C maioꝛ oꝛ A minoꝛ. That is what is neat about modulating to relatiue modes: it can be ſo ſubtle that the liſtener doth not euen notice at firſt that a modulation hath occurred.