Відео

Entfliehet, verschwindet, entweichet, ihr Sorgen verwirret die lustigen Regungen nicht!💐

🤔

Thank you so much for the kind words! It's surreal to think I started the channel 3 years ago almost, and that I actually took a crack at analyzing all of the chorales I could find. You point out the (probably) most important take away from all of my videos which is that there isn't any one way to analyze, and finding a style that helps you make a connection with the music is the most valuable way to analyze, even if it breaks conventions.

Thanks for watching and for the encouragement!

Hello, according to Wikipedia, BWV 61 does have a "chorale," however if you look at the score/listen to the movement, it doesn't have the homorhythmic texture that the other chorales I looked at on the channel have. Sorry!

BWV 387 - Nun freut euch, Gottes Kinder all. Sorry for neglecting to mention the title!

Wow, what a zesty comment. Arrangers are composers, in my opinion; however, harmonizing a chorale (especially if you're in a camp that looks at each individual voice as its own melody) requires generation and organization of musical content. If that's not composition, I don't know what is! I talk about Bach being an artisan in the video. His music had artistic elements, but it primarily served social/cultural/religious functions. If the algorithms/procedures that had worked for previous composers worked in this context for them, why wouldn't Bach stand on the shoulders of his predecessors? Looking at chords top down would be an interesting lens to view a chorale harmonization through, since the melody came first, and informed the harmony. I did conventional roman numeral analyses, which involved identifying chord roots, regardless of their placement in the chord, and even though I didn't put any particular emphasis on the melody when collecting my data, I think the fact that the melodies most often predated Bach by at least 100 years, Bach got creative harmonizing them, subverting a lot of our expectations as far as what our current understanding of tonal harmony of his time is.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for the comment. Both Gm7b5 and Bbm6 are the same pitches: G Bb D and F, and Bb D F and G. What matters is context. If we sat together at a piano and I played that chord for you and asked you to tell me what chord it is, and you told me Bbm6, you'd be right. You'd also be right if you told me it was Gm7b5 over B. ii > V > I is a staple cadential chord progression. It might even be the most common cadential progression in all of Bach's chorale harmonizations, especially when the ii chord is in first inversion with a seventh. Generally, we're identifying chords in a common practice period tonal composition like this based on what we think the chord's root is, and I'm actually figuring that G is the root with more than just instinct/experience. We can assume that F is the 7th of the chord due to it resolving down by step (which is a common way for 7ths to move). If F is our 7th, then G must be our root.

I noticed that progressions like this pop up pretty frequently in Bach's chorale harmonizations (where the progression goes against the cycle of falling fifths). I started calling them "transitive" progressions because I remember learning about a property that kinda worked like this in math (a + b = b + a, for example), but I forgot the name. I think there are a couple reasons why progressions like this pop up: 1) The chords are still a four/fifth apart, so the same voice leading that gets iii to vi will get vi to iii. 2) Regardless of which direction you follow the cycle of fifths, you'll eventually end up on cadential/precadential chord. Following it going down leads to V, or more specifically ii/IV V I, and following it up leads to vii if you stop the progression early, or IV if you follow it all the way to the end. IV can serve as part of a plagal cadence, or it can be followed by V for an Authentic/deceptive cadence.

I like your analysis on this, thanks for answering

Analysis can take all different shapes, forms, and goals. My project took a more traditional approach where I look at harmony, mostly, but an analysis can be looked through any lens you want: historical, cultural, lyrical, religious, and many many more. Bach's chorale harmonizations make up a sizeable portion of the Western theory curriculum, so I wanted to take a closer look at the chorales to look for quirks that not only gave Bach his characteristic sound, but how they might deviate from the "norms of the common practice period" that we're taught in a Western theory curriculum. Beneath the surface level beauty of the music is a lot of organization, and I would argue, attention to detail (even though Bach isn't around for us to ask him about his intentions), so a harmonic analysis, of a Bach chorale in my case, could be aimed at trying to get a better understanding of some of the objective truths behind why a particular piece sounds the way it does. Is it a particular chord progression, or even a particular voicing of a single chord? Is it how Bach handles a modulation that wasn't originally implied by the melody? Was it an uncommon cadence? Analysis also has practical value in the sense that it provides an opportunity to practice reading, interval/chord/key recognition, and all the other mental gymnastics that can come with being a Western music. At the end of the day, I think analysis has potential to help develop a greater appreciation for the music. It's very, very, easy to get overwhelmed because of the many conventions that come with harmonic analysis like what I've done in this project, but the main aesthetic goal for the channel is to emphasize the fact that a great deal of analysis comes down to interpretation. Music is often ambiguous, even if it's highly structured, and your interpretation can very easily be different than mine. But, I would argue the most important take away is that getting caught up in the small details often turns people away from analysis and theory in general, when in reality all analysis comes down to is trying to understand the structure of a piece of music, no matter how surface-leveled or detailed that might be.

I've heard one person label Bach's Well Tempered Clavier as the Old Testament for piano music, and Beethoven's sonatas as the New Testament.

This is common to find in Bach's chorale harmonizations that are particularly in minor keys on the flat side of the circle of fifths: G minor with 1 flat, C minor with 2 flats, etc. . I don't know why we don't see it in sharp minor keys, but my guess regarding why Bach does it has to do with the number of flat 6s that occur in the harmonization. If he uses D-natural more than D-flat, no need to include it in the key signature if it means more engraving. This gives us some insight regarding Bach's relationship with key signatures. They are more about efficiency than they are about indicating to the reader what key the piece is in.

@forrestmusictheory that makes sense! Thank you, and sorry if I'm going to be writing many comments on your Bach analysis videos, I've just bought myself a copy of the Reimenschneider bach chorales and am on a quest to analyse/harmonise all of them with your videos! So far I've done the first 10 in the past few days (I'm on school holidays)😅. Thanks again, and for all these amazing videos!!

It should be uppercase. You're right. I make errors like this from time to time because of my dyslexia. I can't read the handwriting because of how small it is, but it should be half diminished if I misspoke.

@forrestmusictheory all good Forrest, not a problem, just making sure, I'm quite pedantic😅.

The I is supposed to be lowercase, sorry. Probably my dyslexia there. Yes the passing notes could be analyzed as a iv7 in second inversion. The last chord in measure 3 is B F# G D, G# diminished 7th, which is vii in a minor, however I made an error. It should be 65, not 43. Measure 9 is probably the most interesting part of this chorale. We're in E minor up until this point, and Bach spontaneously moves to A minor. I think it's interesting because he resolves to the tonic E minor right after the half cadence, but then includes F natural in the bass. If I were to reanalyze this, I would probably say that Bach modulates using the E minor chord as a common chord, even though modulating over the minor dominant is somewhat rare in the chorales. I can't quite read my handwriting, but I think I neglected the F natural and analyzed it as F# diminished, rather than F major. It should be VI not vio.

V65/V is a first inversion V7 chord in the key of V. So in this case, V65/V is B7/D#, which is the dominant of E. You can proceed any major or minor chord with its dominant (and sometimes other supporting chords) without modulating. This is called a secondary dominant, and it's a very common convention of common practice period harmony. It would make complete sense to analyze sections in their own respective key, however, in my experience, it's more common to see analyses take note of whether or not the music has changed key, and how it did so. Bach does modulate here, but the tricky part that I'm still on the fence about is where the modulation happens. This is often a problem in analyzing the chorales, because there are many takes regarding where the point of modulation is. The peculiar thing about this chorale is that Bach cadences in E major, but modulates to the key of E though an E minor chord. This is a byproduct of the chorale, which Bach didn't compose, he just harmonized. If that were a G# in the melody, rather than a G natural, I would say the E chord would be our common chord, but I got tripped up on the E minor.

You're absolutely right, it should be V7/IV. Thank you for catching that.

@forrestmusictheory no problem! Also I think I caught some other things. I think the vii° in the 3rd bar before the first cadence should be vii°6 and also in the second line, 3rd bar, there should be brackets on the A in alto and under the C in soprano because they are accented passing notes and the F in alto is the chord tone. In the bar with the long descending 8th note bass line before the cadence point, the brackets should be around the F in alto because it is suspended and the E following it is the chord tone of the vi chord. There should also be brackets around the G in bass in the 3rd last bar because the proceeding F is the chord tone. Sorry to be such a pain, I'm a very pedantic person😅! I just had a question, why is it V7/IV if the root of the chord is G? Also is a V7/IV the same as V42? Thanks again for all the harmonisations!

@@EthanNistor Hi again: The viio chord is analyzed as a viio6. The 6 is just tiny, sorry. I only used cut outs from my Riemenschneider for the first 15 episodes or so, so there isn't a ton of room for roman numerals. The A in the alto in the third bar is a 7-6 suspension, so there should be a marking around it. Good catch! I mismarked the non-chord tone under the C in the soprano. The G should be marked because it's another suspension (4-3). The F# in the Alto should be marked as a 9-8 suspension, you're right; however Bach changes bass, and we see parallel ninths. So even if we pretend that E is a chord tone, Bach subverts the resolution with the change in the bass. This could be analyzed as a vi42 chord if this was the case. You're not a pain at all. Thank you for your insightful comments. V7/IV implies that the chord is functioning as IV's dominant. I don't think this is the best example to explain secondary dominance, because Bach is doing something I would start calling "subdominant cadences" once I started picking up on it in later videos (it takes time to see patterns and routines in anyone's work), but we see Bach take our tonic triad and morph it into the dominant of C right before the cadence. Our expectation is for I to function like a tonic, especially after being stressed for the majority of a bar like he's doing here. V/IV and V42 aren't the same thing. V42 is a dominant seventh chord in third inversion, V7/IV is a root position dominant chord that tonicizes the subdominant without fully modulating. In this case, I don't think there's a super straightforward analysis as far as the modulation is concerned, because Bach doesn't really prepare it before he cadences, so I analyzed it in what made sense to me. It's pretty unusual for modulations to occur over a secondary dominant, in general.

Hi David. This would be a huge undertaking, for sure. And unfortunately, I'm not a piano player, so this wouldn't be something I could do with any sort of confidence. I would recommend checking out Bach Scholar regarding playing through chorales at the keyboard.

Thank you so much!

Hi, I thought the same thing originally (as you can see in the title I used in the video). Although the source text for the chorale is Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid, chorales are named based on the first line of the stanza of the text. Check out the Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ach_Gott,_wie_manches_Herzeleid,_BWV_3 . Thank you so much for checking out the video!

Thank you. That's just my voice .😆

Thank you for catching this, and explaining it the way you do. I think this is probably the best way to look at it, and it would make the most sense on the page when analyzing it this way. I think the main point is that this is a tonicization occurring at a cadence, and that Bach does this almost exclusively with the subdominant. These cadences have really interesting sounds. I think it's important to note that Bach often achieves this tonicized effect without the secondary dominant a lot of the time as well. I went through my notes and found the harmonizations that I noticed at least one "subdominant" cadence in (all BWV numbers): 17.7, 19.7, 24.6, 29.8, 45.7, 57.8, 62.6, 75.7/14, 94.8, 95.7, 128.5, 129.5, 161.6, 169.7, 171.6, 190.7, 197.05, 197a.7, 250, 269, 292, 308, 339, 374, 385, 389, 390, 391, 398, 408, 420, 428, 430, 437, and 1126, which should be 38 in total.