Monday, June 18, 2018

Czerny, Praktische Studien des Generalbasses, Op. 838: ninth chords

Czerny introduces the dominant with a minor ninth relatively early in his harmony exercise book. Much later he has a section titled "Der Nonen-Accord." It consists of one two-page composition, a 43-bar agitato that begins in C minor but ends triumphantly in C major.

With only three exceptions, the ninth chords are again dominants with a minor ninth--as at the first arrow below--and those ninths are resolved within the chord--as at the second arrow. Only over pedal point basses are the ninths allowed to resolve directly. In other words, Czerny's treatment of ninth chords is very conservative for the 1850s.


Two of the three dominants with major ninth are close together--see arrows below--and both resolve their ninths within the chord. (Chords with minor ninth are boxed.)


All this being the case, the primary closing cadence is a surprise: not only does it have a chord with major ninth (boxed) but that chord is treated in the manner I call the "waltz ninth," where 9 moves upward, the result being an emphatic ascending cadence gesture (beamed at (a)).  (At (b) is an example of the minor ninths over a pedal point.) Here it is Beethovenian heroic transcendence we are hearing, definitely not a lilting upward turn to end a waltz or polka.