Offenbach's "catalogue" of melodic figures

In correspondence, Jeremy Day-O'Connell asked what I thought of the V9 chord in the theme of the famous can-can (Galop infernale) from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers [first production 1858]). I took a look and found that, within a few seconds, that great genius of satirical operetta (opéra bouffe) packed in hints or realizations of many of the century's characteristic melodic treatments of scale degrees ^2 and ^6. Here they are:

At (a), a hint of what became the V13 chord (more on that below). At (b1), ^2 colors the tonic with a major second (as 9 in 9-8). At (b2), ^6 colors the tonic triad, a hint of what shortly would become the Iadd6 chord. At (c), ^6 in its classical position as third of the subdominant triad. At (d), a true dominant ninth chord. At (e1) and (e2), the alternation of 9-8 and 6-5 over tonic and dominant, a figure that is a cliché in the early waltz repertoire, as we saw in previous posts on Schubert.

As a postscript, here are bars 1-2 rewritten as an "evolution of the 13th chord." At (a), bars 1-2 showing the ancient escape tone figure I have mentioned in previous posts. The more common version creates a ninth as the escape tone, but this one can be found often in eighteenth-century music as well. At (b), the melody is simplified, the longer note values giving more attention to the dissonance, raising the question (note the ?) of whether this might be a harmony rather than a coincidental dissonance. At (c), then, the V13 has fully arrived as the 13th displaces the 12th altogether.

Haydn, part 2: postscript

In yesterday's post about the menuet from Symphony no. 86, I observed that the line from ^1 to ^5 (D5 to A5) in the first strain is pushed "one step too far" to B5 before settling on A5 in the cadence. Here is the example:

This "one-too-far" figure has its roots in 17th century improvised embellishment practices. Here is a simple example adapted from my van Eyck series on this blog: link. The upper staff is the ending of the original tune ("Wel Jan wat drommel"), the lower staff the equivalent place in the first variation. The escape tone diminutions are circled. The last of them is not quite a diminution, as van Eyck actually reorders the notes of the original, but the effect is pretty much the same.

In tonal music of the major-minor system, the most familiar—and probably most influential—figure of this type involves scale degree ^6. In example (a) below, the motion from the consonant A through a passing tone G to a consonant F# is embellished with an escape tone B. This is rather mild business, of course, as the B is consonant with the pedal base D. Even in my rather Brahmsian version, with its third and octave doublings, the effect is sweet rather than dissonant. In example (b1) the underlying voice leading pattern is shown, this time with a change of bass, however. It's this version—embellishment of V rather than I—that is commonly found throughout the century from roughly 1770 to 1870—see example (b2) for the figure with escape tone. Examples (c1) and (c2), then, show two versions with full harmonies.

The escape tone figure was one of the most important enablers of the dominant ninth chord. All it took—as Schubert and others in his generation discovered—was to replace the passing motion with a neighbor figure by resolving ^6 back into ^5 over the chord change.