In the
Middle Ages, simultaneous notes a fourth apart were heard as a consonance. During the
common practice period (between about 1600 and 1900), this interval came to be heard either as a
dissonance (when appearing as a
suspension requiring resolution in the
voice leading) or as a
consonance (when the root of the chord appears in parts higher than the fifth of the chord). In the later 19th century, during the
breakdown of tonality in
classical music, all intervallic relationships were once again reassessed. Quartal harmony was developed in the early
20th century as a result of this breakdown and reevaluation of tonality.
Precursors The
Tristan chord is made up of the notes F, B, D and G and is the first chord heard in
Wagner's
opera Tristan und Isolde. : { \new PianoStaff (~ gis4 a8 ais8-> b4~ b8) r r } \new Voice \relative c' { \override DynamicLineSpanner.staff-padding = #4.5 \once \override DynamicText.X-offset = #-5 \voiceTwo \partial8 a\pp( f'4.~\ d!4.)~\p d8 r r } >> \new Staff 2.( 4.)~ 8 r r } >> >> } The bottom two notes make up an augmented fourth, while the upper two make up a perfect fourth. This layering of fourths in this context has been seen as highly significant. The chord had been found in earlier works, notably
Beethoven's
Piano Sonata No. 18, but Wagner's use was significant, first because it is seen as moving away from traditional
tonal harmony and even towards
atonality, and second because with this chord Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure of musical harmony to become more predominant than its
function, a notion which was soon after to be explored by
Debussy and others. Despite the layering of fourths, it is rare to find musicologists identifying this chord as "quartal harmony" or even as "proto-quartal harmony", since Wagner's musical language is still essentially built on thirds, and even an ordinary
dominant seventh chord can be laid out as augmented fourth plus perfect fourth (F–B–D–G). Wagner's unusual chord is really a device to draw the listener into the musical-dramatic argument which the composer is presenting to us. At the beginning of the 20th century, quartal harmony finally became an important element of harmony.
Scriabin used a self-developed system of transposition using fourth-chords, like his
Mystic chord (shown below) in his
Piano Sonata No. 6. : { \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c' { \clef treble \time 4/4 1 } } Scriabin wrote this chord in his sketches alongside other quartal passages and more traditional
tertian passages, often passing between systems, for example widening the six-note quartal sonority (C–F–B–E–A–D) into a seven-note chord (C–F–B–E–A–D–G). Scriabin's sketches for his unfinished work
Mysterium show that he intended to develop the Mystic chord into a huge chord incorporating all twelve notes of the
chromatic scale. In France,
Erik Satie experimented with
planing in the stacked fourths (not all perfect) of his 1891 score for
Le Fils des étoiles.
Paul Dukas's ''
The Sorcerer's Apprentice'' (1897) has a rising repetition in fourths, as the tireless work of out-of-control walking brooms causes the water level in the house to "rise and rise".
20th- and 21st-century classical music Composers who use the techniques of quartal harmony include
Claude Debussy,
Francis Poulenc,
Alexander Scriabin,
Alban Berg,
Leonard Bernstein,
Arnold Schoenberg,
Igor Stravinsky,
Maurice Ravel,
Sigfrid Karg-Elert,
Joe Hisaishi and
Anton Webern.
Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg's
Chamber Symphony Op. 9 (1906) displays quartal harmony: the first measure and a half construct a five-part fourth chord with the notes (highlighted in red in the illustration) A–D–F–B–E–A distributed over the five stringed instruments (the viola must tune down the lowest string by a minor third, and read in the unfamiliar tenor clef). |374x374px Schoenberg was also one of the first to write on the theoretical consequences of this harmonic innovation. In his
Theory of Harmony (
Harmonielehre) of 1911, he wrote: For
Anton Webern, the importance of quartal harmony lay in the possibility of building new sounds. After hearing Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Webern wrote "You must write something like that, too!"
Others In his
Theory of Harmony: "Besides myself my students Dr. Anton Webern and
Alban Berg have written these harmonies (fourth chords), but also the Hungarian
Béla Bartók or the Viennese
Franz Schreker, who both go a similar way to Debussy, Dukas and perhaps also
Puccini, are not far off."
, No. 131, Fourths
(Quartes'')|600x600px French composer
Maurice Ravel used quartal chords in
Sonatine (1906) and ''
Ma mère l'Oye'' (1910), while American
Charles Ives used quartal chords in his song "The Cage" (1906). Hindemith constructed large parts of his symphonic work
Symphony: Mathis der Maler by means of fourth and fifth intervals. These steps are a restructuring of fourth chords (C–D–G becomes the fourth chord D–G–C), or other mixtures of fourths and fifths (D–A–D–G–C in measure 3 of the example). Hindemith was, however, not a proponent of an explicit quartal harmony. In his 1937 writing
Unterweisung im Tonsatz (
The Craft of Musical Composition,) he wrote that "notes have a family of relationships, that are the bindings of tonality, in which the ranking of intervals is unambiguous," so much so, indeed, that in the art of triadic composition "...the musician is bound by this, as the painter to his primary colours, the architect to the three dimensions." He lined up the harmonic and melodic aspects of music in a row in which the octave ranks first, then the fifth and the third, and then the fourth. "The strongest and most unique harmonic interval after the octave is the fifth, the prettiest nevertheless is the third by right of the chordal effects of its
Combination tones." and repeated B's and F's|378x378px The works of the Filipino composer (1915–1984) are characterised by quartal and quintal harmonies, as well as by dissonant counterpoint and polychords. As a transition to the history of jazz,
George Gershwin may be mentioned. In the first movement of his
Concerto in F altered fourth chords descend chromatically in the right hand with a chromatic scale leading upward in the left hand.
Jazz Jazz is often understood as a synthesis of the European common practice harmonic vocabulary with textural paradigms from West African folk music—but it would be an oversimplification to describe jazz as sharing the same fundamental theory of harmony as European music. Important influences come from
opera as well as from the instrumental work of Classical- and Romantic-era composers, and even that of the Impressionists. From the beginning, jazz musicians expressed a particular interest in rich harmonic colours, for which non-tertiary harmony was a means of exploration, as used by pianists and
arrangers like
Jelly Roll Morton,
Duke Ellington,
Art Tatum,
Bill Evans,
Milt Buckner,
Chick Corea,
Herbie Hancock, and especially
McCoy Tyner. |350x350px brass part, from
Horace Silver's "Señor Blues"|450x450px The
hard bop of the 1950s made new applications of quartal harmony accessible to jazz.
Quintet writing in which two melodic instruments (commonly trumpet and saxophone) may proceed in fourths, while the piano (as a uniquely harmonic instrument) lays down chords, but sparsely, only hinting at the intended harmony. This style of writing, in contrast with that of the previous decade, preferred a moderate tempo. Thin-sounding unison bebop horn sections occur frequently, but these are balanced by bouts of very refined
polyphony such as is found in
cool jazz. uses three intervals of a fourth.|175x175px On his watershed record
Kind of Blue,
Miles Davis with pianist
Bill Evans used a chord consisting of three perfect fourth intervals and a major third on the composition "
So What". This particular voicing is sometimes referred to as a
So What chord, and can be analyzed (without regard for added sixths, ninths, etc.) as a minor seventh with the root on the bottom, or as a major seventh with the third on the bottom. From the outset of the 1960s, the employment of quartal possibilities had become so familiar that the musician now felt the fourth chord existed as a separate entity, self standing and free of any need to resolve. The pioneering of quartal writing in later jazz and rock, like the pianist
McCoy Tyner's work with saxophonist
John Coltrane's "classic quartet", was influential throughout this epoch.
Oliver Nelson was also known for his use of fourth chord
voicings. Tom Floyd claims that the "foundation of 'modern quartal harmony'" began in the era when the
Charlie Parker–influenced John Coltrane added classically trained pianists Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner to his ensemble. Jazz guitarists cited as using chord voicings using quartal harmony include
Johnny Smith,
Tal Farlow,
Chuck Wayne,
Barney Kessel,
Joe Pass,
Jimmy Raney,
Wes Montgomery—however, all in a traditional manner, as major 9th, 13th and minor 11th chords (an octave and fourth equals an 11th). Jazz guitarists cited as using modern quartal harmony include
Jim Hall (especially
Sonny Rollins's
The Bridge),
George Benson ("Sky Dive"),
Pat Martino,
Jack Wilkins ("Windows"),
Joe Diorio,
Howard Roberts,
Kenny Burrell,
Wes Montgomery,
Henry Johnson,
Russell Malone,
Jimmy Bruno,
Howard Alden,
Bill Frisell,
Paul Bollenback,
Mark Whitfield, and
Rodney Jones. Quartal harmony was also explored as a possibility under new experimental
scale models as they were "discovered" by jazz. Musicians began to work extensively with the so-called
church modes of old European music, and they became firmly situated in their compositional process. Jazz was well-suited to incorporate the medieval use of fourths to thicken lines into its improvisation. The pianists
Herbie Hancock, and
Chick Corea are two musicians well known for their modal experimentation. Around this time, a style known as
free jazz also came into being, in which quartal harmony had extensive use, owing to the wandering nature of its harmony. "|500x500px In jazz, the way chords were built from a scale came to be called
voicing, and specifically quartal harmony was referred to as fourth voicing. with fourth voicings: all chords are in fourth voicings. They are often ambiguous as, for example, the Dm11 and G9sus chords are here voiced identically and will thus be distinguished for the listener by the
root movement of the
bassist.|450x450px Thus when the m11 and the dominant 7th sus (9sus above) chords in quartal voicings are used together they tend to "blend into one overall sound" sometimes referred to as modal voicings, and both may be applied where the m11 chord is called for during extended periods such as the entire chorus.
Rock music Quartal and quintal harmony have been used by
Robert Fripp,
guitarist of
King Crimson. Fripp dislikes minor thirds and especially major thirds in
equal temperament tuning, which is used by non-experimental guitars. The perfect fourths and fifths of
just intonation are well approximated in equal temperament tuning, and perfect fifths and octaves are highly consonant intervals. Fripp builds chords using perfect fifths, fourths, and octaves in his
new standard tuning (NST), a
regular tuning having perfect fifths between its successive
open strings. The 1971 album
Tarkus by
Emerson, Lake & Palmer depends on quartal harmony throughout, including a recurrent elaboration on the classical
Alberti bass pattern, in this case consisting of three broken quartal three-note chords, the first two of which are also a perfect fourth apart, and the third a semitone higher than the first. Keith Emerson uses programmatic quintal harmony in several places for extended rapid obbligato passages where human fingering would be impracticable, the first on Hammond organ and the second on Modular Moog, in a similar manner to the mutation stops on pipe organs, such as the "Twelfth" at 2 2/3' pitch played against a 4' "Principal" (which plays the eighth note). In the second instance, the triad is both quartal and quintal, being 1+4+5.
Ray Manzarek of
The Doors was another keyboard player and composer who put classical and jazz elements, including quartal harmonies, into the service of rock music. The keyboard solo of "
Riders on the Storm", for instance, has several passages where the melody line is doubled at an interval of a perfect fourth, and extensive use of (E dorian) minor chord voicings featuring the seven and three, spaced by that same interval, as the prominent notes. == Examples of quartal pieces ==