Strauss' Earth-shattering Dissonance

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  • Опубликовано: 11 янв 2025

Комментарии • 138

  • @heinedietiker4943
    @heinedietiker4943 7 месяцев назад +131

    Salomé was very controversial. A journalist asked Strauss if he had any regrets. Strauss: "Why? I financed my villa in Garmisch from this scandal."

    • @replyhere590
      @replyhere590 6 месяцев назад +11

      My My, How very German practical he was. Hold your head high and show up your detractors! Bravo!

  • @cgnotes
    @cgnotes 7 месяцев назад +147

    her vibrato gets SO HUGE at 1 minute in holy shitt

  • @inthedesert2008
    @inthedesert2008 7 месяцев назад +116

    So Strauss sits down, and he thinks, how can I capture the grotesque, lust of an evil woman, and make sure this music sounds nothing like the beautiful chords of Rosenkavalier. I know, I will write an utterly gorgeous melody and chordal progression, but I'll throw in an appalling atonal clash amongst the lush yearning chords. He was truly a genius. No one has equalled his mastery of the romantic art, even with the advent of so many film composers of quality, none come remotely close to his ability to 'invent' the most incredible image painting with music. We are so lucky to have experienced his genius.

    • @celloguy
      @celloguy 7 месяцев назад +21

      Except Rosenkavalier was still 5 years in the future!

    • @jrneal1220
      @jrneal1220 6 месяцев назад +11

      @@celloguy And Salome isn't evil. Especially when one thinks about what she has likely suffered at the hands of Herod before the opera begins...

    • @xv12commander
      @xv12commander Месяц назад

      Difficult to imagine if you didn't know that...

    • @A_Long_Musk
      @A_Long_Musk 7 дней назад

      It's more the chord voicing that makes the chord effectively what it is. Modern jazz musicians would easily recognise this chord, structurally, as an F sharp (flat 7 implied) with sharp and flat 9, but they wouldn't voice it with the sharp nine (A, but really g double-sharp) in the bass line.

  • @owenbishop6544
    @owenbishop6544 7 месяцев назад +102

    Strauss is woefully under appreciated. Not just his chords but also his key changes are at times incredibly magical. Mahler, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff were also, in my opinion, able to pack an otherworldly amount of emotion into single chords/key changes

    • @olliemartinelli4034
      @olliemartinelli4034 7 месяцев назад +7

      Absolutely, his chord progressions are otherworldly, really take you by surprise in the best way possible

    • @ToxicTurtleIsMad
      @ToxicTurtleIsMad 7 месяцев назад +1

      Rach doesnt belong

    • @owenbishop6544
      @owenbishop6544 7 месяцев назад +7

      @@ToxicTurtleIsMad listen to the first version of his second sonata, the chord(s) that came to mind for me was at the climax of the last movement. Probably the most emotive piano climax that I’ve ever heard

    • @owenbishop6544
      @owenbishop6544 7 месяцев назад +5

      @@ToxicTurtleIsMad in addition, the rest of the sonata is filled with many less intense but equally emotional chords

    • @starless5668
      @starless5668 3 месяца назад

      The godfather of that is Schubert.

  • @Johnwilkinsonofficial
    @Johnwilkinsonofficial 7 месяцев назад +52

    strauss is still so underrated. effortlessly harmonically inventive.

    • @georgie5700
      @georgie5700 7 месяцев назад +1

      He was definitely not during his lifetime. His association with Nazism might have something to do with him being pushed into oblivion nowadays. He was such a revolutionary composer

  • @lc1715
    @lc1715 7 месяцев назад +33

    Orchestration simply peaked with this man.

    • @Budolf
      @Budolf 3 месяца назад

      So truee

  • @lindseydejesus1877
    @lindseydejesus1877 7 месяцев назад +21

    ENDING OF SALOME!!! one of my favorite moments in opera. this is suuuuch a cool analysis!

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      Glad you enjoyed it!

  • @andreasderoo8129
    @andreasderoo8129 7 месяцев назад +178

    I love how you just wrote ???, which just made perfect sense for me

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +33

      I don't think I could've expressed it better

    • @itamarbar9580
      @itamarbar9580 7 месяцев назад +8

      V9(-5 b9 add13)/bII with some dissonant voicing. Somehow I forgot this was Strauss and expected an Ivesian nightmare of a chord, so I thank Strauss for this relatively tame, easy to understand chord.

    • @oibruv3889
      @oibruv3889 7 месяцев назад +4

      ​@@itamarbar9580 although I think contrapuntal investigation is the only serious answer, this is much more akin to a common tone augmented 6th chord. Read Harmony and Voice leading by aldwell and schacter, it will better prepare you for passages like this. (i know that it is not written as an aug 6 but as a 7th, however I'm sure you can see that it is best understood as an F double sharp, just like the errant Bb close to the end of chopins E minor prelude)

    • @itamarbar9580
      @itamarbar9580 7 месяцев назад

      @@oibruv3889 huh. Interesting ideas! Regarding it as an Fx really does take things into a different perspective! I am learning harmony but by the rules of Sadai. I'll take another look and come back.

    • @itamarbar9580
      @itamarbar9580 7 месяцев назад

      @@oibruv3889 mid-thought: Ok, It6 makes sense in the roots, but how do you categorize the right hand into the chord?

  • @evanmisejka4062
    @evanmisejka4062 7 месяцев назад +65

    Studied Salome in my music history sequence. It is certainly one of the operas of all time

  • @steverman2312
    @steverman2312 7 месяцев назад +22

    1:23 is like a car crash in musical form, its so nasty but you cant stop listening to it

  • @salmonidae3667
    @salmonidae3667 7 месяцев назад +15

    Strauss' tone poems and operas are, in my opinion, the greatest achievements of late romanticism.

  • @michaelpogudincomposition
    @michaelpogudincomposition 7 месяцев назад +32

    Love the "???," sometimes I think one can get too wrapped up into naming every single chord vertically. Sometimes a chord is more for a motion of voices purpose, or just a "wtf" purpose. ??? sums it up perfectly!

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +9

      I agree! In some cases, Roman numerals can only get you so far...

    • @TheSlowPianist
      @TheSlowPianist 7 месяцев назад

      I liken it to trying to understand a film purely by looking at still pictures from the film. Some harmonies are meant to be passed through and don't make all that much sense when frozen in time.

  • @skylarlimex
    @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +83

    Stravinsky's Rite of Spring chord doesn't seem so bad after this...

    • @choiyatlam2552
      @choiyatlam2552 7 месяцев назад +10

      Not really. To me it's more about context. This chord resolved and only exist for a moment.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +37

      @@choiyatlam2552 exactly, in fact in the case of stravinsky it's almost as if we're desensitised to the dissonance after hearing the chord being pounded over and over again whereas in Strauss, the rarity in this sort of dissonance gives it such an arresting, almost stupefying quality in its tonal context.

    • @bezuglich
      @bezuglich 7 месяцев назад +1

      What about the last chord in "Volare" - big-band version?

    • @SehrLukas
      @SehrLukas 7 месяцев назад

      which one though?

  • @andreswainselboim9217
    @andreswainselboim9217 7 месяцев назад +13

    That moment is brutal!! Interesting how the clash between A and A# is also realized horizontally in the preceding trill.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      Which part are you referring to exactly?

    • @andreswainselboim9217
      @andreswainselboim9217 7 месяцев назад

      I mean the preceding trill in the upper woodwinds, which is itself composed of A and A#, and which lasts from the beginning of the video until the big cadential I64. If I remember correctly, the trill starts right as the king "screams" those same two notes (using vibrato) and Salome starts singing the "I have kissed your mouth Jochanan" part right?

    • @andreswainselboim9217
      @andreswainselboim9217 7 месяцев назад

      By which I mean, the king hits a very intense high A which with the wide vibrato is very similar to the trill that starts at that precise moment.

    • @andreswainselboim9217
      @andreswainselboim9217 7 месяцев назад

      In a way the trill kinda represents the "reverb" or echo of the king's scream.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      Yes indeed! I like your interpretation about the echo. A small precision about the trill - if I'm not wrong they're actually trilling A and Ab(G#) at the beginning. And the trill is one of my favourite things about this excerpt, creating such a small mysterious dissonance at first but evolving into a huge sonic mass at the end; practically all the woodwinds are trilling at the big cadential 64 section.

  • @tobiaspeter6555
    @tobiaspeter6555 7 месяцев назад +5

    Even years before I stumbled across this little clip, I chose that particular chord as the sexiest dissonance ever.

  • @MrMichaelvier
    @MrMichaelvier 6 месяцев назад +2

    Richard Strauss was the greatest Opera Composer of the 20th ....his Music is breathtaking ....what a Genius. The Mozart of the 20th Century. .thx for posting

  • @aldeayeah
    @aldeayeah 7 месяцев назад +13

    i brace myself whenever I see an incoming tower of accidentals of different kinds

  • @metodi.pachev
    @metodi.pachev 7 месяцев назад +7

    I saw it in Paris on the 12 this month. I knew the score but listening to all that live was mindblowing. Genious work

  • @gnirolnamlerf593
    @gnirolnamlerf593 6 месяцев назад +3

    I was a teenager when I first saw _Salome_ in West Berlin on June 12, 1966. (I keep all my programs.) I had already seen _the Marriage of Figaro_ , _Cosi fan Tutte_ , _The Flying Dutchman_ , _Fidelio_ , _Der Freischütz_ at the Deutsche Oper and I had no idea what I was getting into with this. The whole opera is gut wrenching, much more than the episode in the Bible, which reads almost like a factual news report. I had never heard the music before. I mean, I was 14 from a working-class American family, and the only opera I had ever seen before I went to Berlin was probably _Amahl and the Night Visitors_ on NBC TV. (The moment of the miracle in that opera still makes me cry.)
    Here you are at this sickening, grotesque, inhuman moment and that chord from hell happens instead of the other possibilities you might be expecting. Forget about _The Rite of Spring_ that Paris was up in arms about in 1913. This was the equivalent of an earthquake or volcano. For me, it was, like, OMG, is this whole building going to collapse on us because of that chord?
    Always good to be reminded of the emotional power of this moment.

    • @Bravilor
      @Bravilor 3 месяца назад

      Who were in the cast when you saw it in 1966?

  • @Fuzznator
    @Fuzznator 7 месяцев назад +4

    Its like flying then you remember you cannot fly and gravity strauss smash you to the ground, genius work

  • @hape3862
    @hape3862 7 месяцев назад +30

    Richard Strauss is the most underrated of the famous composers.

    • @JosefFux
      @JosefFux 7 месяцев назад +1

      In fact, I don't see he's underrated, is he?

    • @CaptainStereo
      @CaptainStereo 6 месяцев назад +1

      @@JosefFuxhe’s certainly not programmed as much as his other romantic contemporaries are, and he also lived in the rising of modernism and musical serialism which had a lot of the public musically preoccupied. that’s not to say he is completely unknown, but i think you’d find that less people are familiar with his work than most other famous composers.
      side note, this probably isn’t helped by the fact that concert string player are predisposed to hate him because of don juan 💀 and as such they think his music is “just hard” and never give him a listen

  • @prepcoin_nl4362
    @prepcoin_nl4362 7 месяцев назад +4

    I personally hear this as just a very grotesque modal mixture iv/IV - I with the final pitch G acting as a leading tone onto the V degree as you also mentioned (It's also an octatonic subset which is a pitch resource elsewhere in the opera and just generally something that started appearing a lot around this time.) I like the iv/IV interpretation better since it accounts for 4 out of 5 pitches in a simple way and is in line with what we'd rhetorically expect at this moment (a plagal reconfirmation of the tonic after having achieved our big V-I) whereas a polytonal Ital6 applied to a tonic makes the moment sound more bewildering than it really is. Indeed, I think a big part of what makes this moment so remark worthy is not how radical it is, but how *close* it is to the Romantic tropes of the era. So close and yet.... not at all. We know exactly what to expect, which is what makes stand out so much what shouldn't be there. It's very much an uncanny valley effect.
    In any case, the highly unusual voicing and voice leading into it as a sort of double(/triple?) appoggiatura is what makes it. Cool excerpt.

  • @organfan668
    @organfan668 7 месяцев назад +2

    This is absolutely beautiful. I’ve never heard this piece before.

  • @Edeskenney
    @Edeskenney 7 месяцев назад +2

    Music that changed the world forever.

  • @Albrecht-to9lm
    @Albrecht-to9lm 7 месяцев назад +4

    Ich bin in diese Oper verliebt! Vielen Dank!

  • @brendanward2991
    @brendanward2991 7 месяцев назад +3

    I had the pleasure of hearing it live in Dublin a few months ago.

  • @lindildeev5721
    @lindildeev5721 7 месяцев назад +5

    If only Oscar Wilde could have lived longer to see this. He would have loved that.

  • @babiskanas7821
    @babiskanas7821 7 месяцев назад +1

    The A major 7th chord is, enarmonically (G for F double sharp), the augumented sixth (german) chord in C# scale. The A#, if considered a B flat, is the minor 9th and the F# (added 6th) is the real dissonance here. But, in fact, the whole chord is a double broderie: G#-A-G# & G#-G natural (F double sharp)-G#. It is the context that gives the tremendous effect.

  • @TheAflix
    @TheAflix 7 месяцев назад +2

    Hey, I just discovered your channel and I love it! I am a poet myself from Spain, beauty demolishes the barrier of different artistic fields in a transcendental way. Thank you for your work.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад

      I'm working on setting some poems from Dionisio Cañas to music at this moment!

  • @marinadela1361
    @marinadela1361 7 месяцев назад +2

    That actually gave me goosebumps.

  • @celloguy
    @celloguy 7 месяцев назад +5

    For me there are more horrifying dissonances earlier in this scene. For instance at figure 355, but also in many other places. This one is almost comic in its horrifying way. Salome is the much more disturbing and also musically creative score when compared to Elektra. Capriccio and Salome are his two most perfect operas in my opinion, though I absolutely adore many of the others.

  • @Budolf
    @Budolf 3 месяца назад

    One of the most transcending and amazing strauss moments

  • @jerzyfryderykwojciechowski
    @jerzyfryderykwojciechowski 7 месяцев назад +1

    sounds magic 🌞

  • @forfeittrain1012
    @forfeittrain1012 3 месяца назад

    I really loved this analysis, as a wind player myself this makes me wish I knew how to compose!

  • @valterrae
    @valterrae 24 дня назад

    Love your videos.

  • @beaureitz7513
    @beaureitz7513 7 месяцев назад +8

    Like this comment if you were aware that she is kissing a severed head in this scene.

  • @replyhere590
    @replyhere590 7 месяцев назад +2

    Somehow Strauss always manages to include some “hope” among his less happy notes. Death and Transfiguration is the best example I can offer, and I have to add that I am not as familiar with with Salome. Maybe also the opening of 2001…oops I mean Also Sprach Zarathustra. Playing the triads game and well done.

  • @itamarbar9580
    @itamarbar9580 7 месяцев назад +2

    I have not seen the opera, but i hope that chord plays when Salome starts making out with the dead corpse head of John the Baptist, as an audible cringe from Herod, Herodias, and everyone else in the opera hall but Salome, as the most scandalous thing about this opera is brought to life, before Herod calls it all to end, which it generously does.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      It sounds like you have indeed seen the opera! 🤣

  • @Pabloinjuanderland
    @Pabloinjuanderland 7 месяцев назад +2

    Stunning

  • @DavidPendock
    @DavidPendock 19 дней назад

    Could hear the chord from the thumbnail. It's so good.

  • @BenjaminPintarComposer
    @BenjaminPintarComposer 2 месяца назад

    Love these chords!!!

  • @angstyautist
    @angstyautist 7 месяцев назад

    Stratas made a video of this role that was shown on US television. If memory serves, it was quite controversial at the time. During the Dance, a part of the female anatomy not commonly revealed to American TV audiences of that more innocent era was briefly exposed on the screen.

  • @davisatdavis1
    @davisatdavis1 7 месяцев назад +1

    Nothing prepares you for that. Not even the warning

  • @lightyagami8525
    @lightyagami8525 7 месяцев назад +2

    Top music theory channel.

  • @thePsykomanteum
    @thePsykomanteum 7 месяцев назад

    outstanding analysis, excellent chan.

  • @daveo2431
    @daveo2431 7 месяцев назад

    What a coincidence, just learned about this crazy piece in class and before you know it you have a video on it. But ngl the song and that one chord have nightmarish vibes.

  • @jamesrockybullin5250
    @jamesrockybullin5250 7 месяцев назад +2

    It’s a minor plagal cadence in C#, chord iv flat 11. The notes are F#, A, C#, (E), G, and B flat. (Written as A# for voice leading reasons.) The 7th is omitted.

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      There's no way you actually hear the F sharp as the root in the chord, the voicing of the chord is simply too complex for that.

    • @jamesrockybullin5250
      @jamesrockybullin5250 7 месяцев назад +1

      @@skylarlimex Ah, I think I know what it is, I heard it as a C# pedal point. The timps kind of cover up the bass motion because they're constantly hammering out C#s. Looking at the full score, the bass instruments do indeed go to an A for that chord, but I heard a constant C# in the bass. I suppose thinking that it was a tonic pedal primed me to listen for standard cadential patterns, and that's why I heard plagal harmony.
      Edit: also the last triplet in that bar is an F# which goes to C#. IV to I is a super strong motion, so I might have subconsciously reinterpreted the chord as having F# as the root.

  • @feliperodriguezbarrera
    @feliperodriguezbarrera 7 месяцев назад +6

    Amigo, revisa la Metamorphosen, por favor!

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +5

      Me encantería en el futuro!

  • @johnchessant3012
    @johnchessant3012 7 месяцев назад +6

    the "desire" motif also appears in Brahms 1, 4th movement!

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +2

      Didn't notice that! Thanks for the share, on hindsight it does sound very brahmsian

  • @tarikeld11
    @tarikeld11 7 месяцев назад +3

    1:47 Me enjoying these chords.. suddenly "Go kill that woman" 💀

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад

      Thankfully it's in German! 🤣

  • @pepe_xara
    @pepe_xara 7 месяцев назад +1

    Brilliant

  • @javiermedina5313
    @javiermedina5313 7 месяцев назад

    love it, The thing sounds to me like a very dissonant A augmented 6 (susV/V7) or A7.

  • @edgarreitz7067
    @edgarreitz7067 7 месяцев назад +3

    But the whole opera is so fucked up thematically, that this chord is kind of satisfying. "Bitterer Beigeschmack" we would say in german like bitter additional taste (ref. to the kiss). I would still prefer Elektra over Salome, its even more freaked out, but way more coherent and musically Strauss best work in my opinion. Salome is so disgusting, while Elektras Electicism is electrifying and captivating!

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад

      That's interesting, would you say bitterer beigeschmack when eating dark chocolate for example?

    • @edgarreitz7067
      @edgarreitz7067 7 месяцев назад +1

      ​@@skylarlimex never ever^^, this idiom doesn't relate to food at all in everyday language, as far as i know, maybe originates from there. It was a pun here. It depends on the situation, expresses ambigious feelings. But "the cacophonic representation of lust, revulsion, horror, doom" sounds definitely more sophisticated! ;)

  • @VeronikaPianist
    @VeronikaPianist 7 месяцев назад

    Wow this is incredible😍

  • @onajmi1
    @onajmi1 3 месяца назад

    Hmm - you have the grotesque moment described as dominant V in the upper voices over It6 in the lower - but the top voices are outlining the subdominant IV. We're in the key of C# major, and the upper voices are playing F# and A#. Dom would be G#.
    Also early in the video you describe a C# major chord as Dom, but it's a tonic I chord, just in 2nd inversion, with the 5th in the bass as a pedal. It only fully moves to a dom chord at the end of Jocha-na-AN

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  3 месяца назад

      I personally heard the A sharp in the upper voices as an appoggiatura leading into G sharp which is why I analysed it as a dominant but as another comment pointed out, they're indeed just neighbour notes.
      The I chord in 2nd inversion actually has the function of the dominant since it does go to the dominant like you've pointed out. The chord is just a huge appoggiatura

  • @mischacarlberg6631
    @mischacarlberg6631 5 месяцев назад

    But why did you leave out the best part? The part after this where the orchestra part goes absolutely crazy as Salome is killed by the soldiers. That piccolo part is intense!

  • @Bravilor
    @Bravilor 3 месяца назад

    What would be the most representative way to play that dissonant chord on a guitar?

  • @charlescoleman5509
    @charlescoleman5509 7 месяцев назад

    Well that chord may be vaguely dissonant. But it’s primarily a clash of F# major and A major 7.

  • @louisdawes2337
    @louisdawes2337 7 месяцев назад

    At 1:38, wouldnt V⁷+5 of IV just be chord I

    • @skylarlimex
      @skylarlimex  7 месяцев назад +1

      Chord I with added notes yes, which changes it's entire function to V/IV

  • @inominado4462
    @inominado4462 7 месяцев назад +1

    Beautiful. Who are the singers?

    • @robbystafford8273
      @robbystafford8273 7 месяцев назад

      thank you. it's infuriating that the channel doesn't care

  • @Snardbafulator
    @Snardbafulator 7 дней назад

    I still think the trombone glisses in Spring Rounds (Rite of Spring) are the gnarliest evar.

  • @KaikhosruShapurjiMedtner
    @KaikhosruShapurjiMedtner 7 месяцев назад +3

    Can you upload the ending fugue of Feinberg’s sonata no.3 or Medtner’s sonata minnacciosa? Thanks

  • @RaymondHebert-o6u
    @RaymondHebert-o6u 7 месяцев назад

    At first glance (and hearing), the big dissonance seems to be the bitonal result of divergent voice leading in the bass and treble parts.

  • @Sshooter444
    @Sshooter444 5 месяцев назад

    This chord is utter depravity, which mirrors the story perfectly.

  • @sanjosemike3137
    @sanjosemike3137 7 месяцев назад

    As much as I love Der Rosenkavalier, I have to admit this is painful. I know it was intentional. Strauss always said he could "set a stein of Beer" to music. (perhaps badly translated).
    I don't think I want to listen to the entire opera. I mean, I can listen to the Berg Violin Concerto and love its dissonances. But this seems for me to be step too far.
    Sanjosemike (no longer in CA)

  • @briancornish2076
    @briancornish2076 7 месяцев назад

    Wheres the ka boom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering ka boom?

  • @pseudotonal
    @pseudotonal Месяц назад

    You're calling an F# chord a dominant in the key of C#? That's a subdominant. No one else noticed that?

  • @johannesbowman2194
    @johannesbowman2194 7 месяцев назад

    The chords: C# to A7 with borrowed F# scale isn't so bad. Jk lol 😂 it's basically just A7(b13) at that point

  • @Peter-x2exz
    @Peter-x2exz 7 месяцев назад

    "ear-shattering" is right!

  • @googlekopfkind
    @googlekopfkind 7 месяцев назад

    Isnt it a D7#13b9. I think its quite common but the weird part ist how he moves the upper structure

  • @dedede5586
    @dedede5586 15 дней назад

    on some stravinsky type shi 💀💀

  • @eugeneyang1176
    @eugeneyang1176 7 месяцев назад +1

    I’ll explain it as a dominant flat 9 (13) chord which often used in jazz, and had major 3rd relationship with tonic.

  • @alexnobrasil3062
    @alexnobrasil3062 7 месяцев назад

    Polychord of F# over A7 (ACG)

  • @WinrichNaujoks
    @WinrichNaujoks 7 месяцев назад

    Was für ein Geschrei.

  • @homolix
    @homolix 2 месяца назад

    what a mediocre music