Mozart Plays with Augmented Triads || Harmonic Motive 

That's a great way to put it; I completely agree.

Yes, I plan on covering some of Taneyev’s cooler insights in videos near the end of the imitative counterpoint playlist. I would rather teach thoroughbass than partimento, but I also have a video coming up that will cover the topic of the relationship of solfeggio to fugue

Thank you for your time, effort, and devotion sir!

I agree

You're welcome!

Good points. In general I agree with you that these augmented fifth "triads" should probably be referred to more accurately as augmented fifth chords, meaning not necessarily things that carry a fundamental bass, but things that warrant a figured bass symbol. In that sense the examples by Albrechtsberger are also composed of non-harmony tones, and the purpose of the examples is to illustrate the relationship of the dissonance to underlying consonant harmonies. The passing example relates exclusively to major triads, and the suspension example relates to minor triads. Boatwright would agree with you that the second two instances sound like Am6 and Dm6, but he argues that the first chord sounds more like D+5 specifically because of the preceding A7 chord. Our ears are primed for a D major triad in root position there, and the bass leap of a fourth from A to D strengthens that sense. That is why I analyzed that chord as having more of a passing function, the same type of relationship shown in Albrechtsberger's first example.

Couperin begins this Sarabande with a striking use of an augmented-fifth chord: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7pRCjx7OpIU.html

Thank you! I put a citation for the Straus article in the description of the video, but the article is based on a plenary speech he gave a few years ago at the Society for Music Theory. He didn't spend very much time dwelling on these few measures, and if my memory serves correctly he actually cited someone else who had made a similar observation in an earlier analysis but I had a hard time tracking down the original. Hope that helps.

Your "absolute pitch" would also have caused you problems in Mozart's time, since at that time the concert pitch was clearly lower and not uniform (!)...

@@Stephan-Noel-Lang You're absolutely right, but I was born a long time after, and I'm used to the A 440...

Thank you. The other three that I mention are in the description, but the textbook by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger is called "Grundliche Anweisung zur Composition" and is available on IMSLP. An English translation is available on Google Books called "J.G. Albrechtsberger's Collected Writings on Thoroughbass, Harmony, and Composition."

@@JacobGran Thank you, i was not sure about the english version title. Thank you for the confirm. Keep delivering great materials. 📚

@@JacobGran I saw a version wich stated Vol.1 are there more than 1 book?

@@DavideBonfantino If that's the version that I use then Vol 2 is just further down in the same book

He does look rather serene

I keep going back and forth on this. It's impossible to know if it was intentional, but it seems in any case strange to avoid the leading tone in 3 different V7 chords within four measures.

@@JacobGran The first occurrence is probably accidental, as it was just a result of neighbor notes. The second one looks like it should be V, but he didn't want it to be strong

@@JacobGran Well the first two both occur because of the basic idea: parallel 3rd with a pedalpoint on the 5th. The first is just and ornament and the second has the leading tone in the bass (1-7-6). The final occurrence is not a V chord at all since it’s just an appoggiatura over the ii chord. None of the occurrences are all that strange, none are particularly highlighted in any intentional way and though I’d have yo look I’m pretty sure the sonority plays no major part in the way the variations develop

That last point is very strong. If it was an intentional design feature, why wasn't it developed? Still though, I think what I was trying to get at is that motivic harmonies are easy to pick up on when they slap us in the face like the Tristan chord. But isn't it possible that composers could go out of their way to include milder sonorities as recurrent design features? I think the reason that tiny appoggiatura packs so much charm has to do with the fact that it "accidentally" confirms a recurring vertical pattern.

Since you've pointed it out in the video, I can hear it in context, so I buy it, too. It reinforces the harmonic motive in the phrase. I think some things happen like this because of the composer's (harmonic) intuition. I'm not saying Mozart didn't think and practice theory in composition, just that maybe he didn't analyze it as much as you guys did.

In HIP recordings, it's usually Well-Tempered with A = 430-ish Hz

This is actually a really important point. Albrechtsberger and other thoroughbass writers don’t divide things into chord tones and non-chord tones. That is the viewpoint of harmony textbooks of the 19th and 20th centuries, where chords are defined as “tertian” stacks of thirds like triads and seventh chords. Instead they thought in terms of consonance and dissonance, where dissonance needed to be explained in terms of consonance, and chords were defined simply as vertical slices of sound (things that could be captured in a figured bass symbol). From this perspective there can definitely be dissonant chord tones (like +5 or something really gnarly like 9/7/4) that still require a contrapuntal explanation in terms of preparation and resolution.

It uses dissonant chords, whether they sound dissonant to you or not.