and
rock bass guitarist
Joseph Patrick Moore demonstrating chromaticism (video) Chromaticism began to develop in the late
Renaissance period, notably in the 1550s, often as part of
musica reservata, in the music of
Cipriano de Rore, in
Orlando Lasso's
Prophetiae Sibyllarum, and in the theoretical work of
Nicola Vicentino. The following timeline is abbreviated from its presentation by Benward & Saker: :
Baroque Period (1600—1750) "The system of major and minor scales developed during the early part of the baroque period. This coincided with the emergence of key consciousness in music." 's
Sechs kleine Klavierstücke, 2nd movement, in thirds: C–E–G–B–D–F–A–C As tonality began to expand during the last half of the nineteenth century, with new combinations of chords, keys and harmonies being tried, the chromatic scale and chromaticism became more widely used, especially in the works of
Richard Wagner, such as the opera "
Tristan und Isolde". Increased chromaticism is often cited as one of the main causes or signs of the "breakdown" of tonality, in the form of increased importance or use of: •
mode mixture •
leading tones •
tonicization of each chromatic step and other
secondary key areas •
modulatory space • hierarchical organizations of the chromatic set such as
George Perle's • the use of non-tonal chords as tonic "keys"/"scales"/"areas" such as the
Tristan chord. As tonal harmony continued to widen and even break down, the chromatic scale became the basis of modern music written using the
twelve-tone technique, a
tone row being a specific ordering or series of the chromatic scale, and later
serialism. Though these styles/methods continue to (re)incorporate tonality or tonal elements, often the trends that led to these methods were abandoned, such as modulation.
Types of chromaticism 's
Variations symphoniques (1885), mm. 5–9, demonstrates chromaticism from use of
parallel keys (
borrowed chords), that "chordal structures ... [may be] partially resultants of the descending bass lines" and that "chromatic evasiveness internally in the phrases [may be] countered by cadence strength and clarity", such as the "resolute movement from
V of V to
V to
I". File:Alexander Scriabin Op. 48, No. 4, mm.15-24 chromaticism from extended chords.png |thumb |300px |Chromaticism from "linear considerations" [voice leading], borrowed chords, and extended chords from the ending of
Alexander Scriabin's
Preludes, Op. 48, No. 4; "though most vertical sonorities include the seventh, ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth, the basic harmonic progressions are strongly anchored to the concept of root movement by fifths".
David Cope describes three forms of chromaticism: modulation, borrowed chords from secondary keys, and chromatic chords such as
augmented sixth chords. {{Blockquote|The chromatic expansion of tonality which characterizes much of nineteenth century music is illustrated in miniature by the substitution of a chromatic harmony for an expected diatonic harmony. This technique resembles the
deceptive cadence, which involves the substitution of another diatonic chord for the expected diatonic goal harmony. ... In the major mode a substitute chromatic consonance often proves to be a triad which has been taken from the parallel minor mode. This process ["assimilation"]...is called
mixture of mode or simply
mixture... Four consonant triads from the minor mode may replace their counterparts in the major mode. These we call
chromatic triads by mixture. Other types of chromaticity: •
Pitch axis theory • Parallel scales •
Nonchord tone • The minor mode in major keys (
mode mixture) • Shir-Cliff, Jay, and Rauscher (1965) ==Chromatic note==