Two mutually exclusive whole-tone scales are formed by choosing alternate notes of the chromatic scale (which has 12 notes per octave). Thus, the whole-tone scale comprises six degrees per octave. Because there are no semitones, all thirds are major, and thus all triads are augmented. Whole-tone harmony, with its similarly structured chords and absence of semitones, lacks the harmonic contrasts and resolutions of the major-minor system and its different keys; with whole-tone harmony, the sense of key centre depends instead on repetition and melodic emphasis. In Western art music, the whole-tone scale is associated with the decline of functional harmony in the late 19th century. The first composers to begin experimenting with the chromatic alterations that imply whole-tone harmony within a generally tonal framework were Franz Liszt and Russian composers such as Mikhail Glinka, Modest Mussorgsky, and Aleksandr Borodin; these were followed in the early 20th century by the more attenuated tonal experiments of Anatoly Lyadov, Aleksandr Scriabin, and Vladimir Rebikov. Whole-tone patterning, with no leading tones or dominant harmony, became a distinctive aspect of the music of the French composers Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas, and others at the turn of the 20th century. Whole-tone harmony thus became a means of suspending or dissolving the perception of tonality in music of this period. britannica/EBchecked/topic/642998/whole-tone-scale
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 21:09:18 +0000
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