Compare and contrast approaches to Tonality in New York Counterpoint, String Quartet number 8 by Shostakovich and Quartet by Webern.

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Compare and contrast approaches to Tonality in New York Counterpoint, String Quartet number 8 by Shostakovich and Quartet by Webern.

As these pieces are all from the 20th century, each of the composers added their own interpretations with regards to tonality. I aim to analyse each piece in the context of tonality in order to answer this question.

New York Counterpoint (NYC) by Steve Reich is tonal which means it makes use of a conventional key which is B major. This can be seen from the five sharps of the key signature (and lack of D naturals and F naturals.) In fitting with the key of B major, all the notes Reich uses in NYC are from the B major scale which makes the piece entirely diatonic.

Although the piece is tonal and diatonic, Reich does not make use of functional harmony. This can be seen because of the lack of cadences and chord structures. The notes of the ostinati in the first section (bars 1-26) are based on chords four and five (E major, and F# major.) For example, in the first two bars beat 1 of bar 1 uses the noes A and C (chord V) then, the three semi quavers contain all the notes of chord IV (EGB) and the A and F just after beat four are from chord V. In the second bar, this trend continues; just after beat 1 notes from chord five are used (F and C in clarinet 7 and C and A in clarinet 8 and so on. Here, it is important to note that the notes from each chord only sound with notes from the same chord, no overlapping of notes is heard. This is a contrast to what happens later in the piece. Later in the piece, tonal blurring occurs which means that the notes from different chords (chords IV and V) sound at the same which results in a slightly dissonant blurred harmony. There is a good example of this at bar 22 on the penultimate semiquaver beat: The live clarinet and clarinet 3 are playing an E and clarinet 6 is playing a B, these notes partly make up chord four. Also, on this same beat, clarinet 1 is playing an A# and clarinet 4 is playing an F# which make up chord 5. Because these notes sound together, the notes that are heard together is B, E, F#, A#. Some of these notes are from chord four and some chord five which results in the blurred tonality because they sound simultaneously. The reason that this tonal blurring occurs is because of phasing which is the process of adding a rest before or after the ostinati pattern. In this example, the live clarinet and clarinet six are one beat out of phase (crotchet rest at the beginning of bar 17) which means the ostinati pattern (C#, B, G#, E) now starts a beat later than it did in bar 1. (unclear)

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Another tonal device that Reich uses in NYC is the pulsating chords found at bar 27 in clarinets 7, 8, 9 and bass clarinet 10.  Here, Reich adds extra dissonances to the chords. For example, on the last two semi quaver beats of bar 27 the notes that are heard are F# (cl7), B# (cl8), D# (b. Cl 9) and a C# in the bass clarinet 10. The notes make up the chord of B major (BD#F#) however the dissonance of a C# is added which creates unclear harmony. This dissonance is then extended when the chords change in ...

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