In 1662,
Johann Rudolf Ahle wrote a melody to the lyrics of
Franz Joachim Burmeister's "
Es ist genug" (It is enough), beginning it with four notes of the whole-tone scale on the four syllables.
Johann Sebastian Bach chose the
chorale to end his cantata
O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort, BWV 60, set for four parts. The first four measures are shown below. : \new PianoStaff > \new Staff > >>
Mozart also used the scale in his
Musical Joke, for strings and horns.
diminished seventh chords in Chopin's
Op. 28, No. 19: Prelude (1832) The notes of one whole-tone scale are colored red (E) and the notes of the other are blue (E); chromaticism is accompanied by whole-tone scale melodic progression, as in the bass. In the 19th century, Russian composers went further with melodic and harmonic possibilities of the scale, often to depict the ominous; examples include the endings of the
overtures to
Glinka's opera
Ruslan and Lyudmila and
Borodin's
Prince Igor, and the Commander's theme in
Dargomyzhsky's
The Stone Guest. Further examples can be found in the works of
Rimsky-Korsakov: the sea king's music in
Sadko and also in
Scheherazade. Shown below is the opening theme to
Scheherazade, which is "simply a descending whole-tone scale with
diatonic trimmings." Notes in the whole-tone scale are highlighted. : \relative c{ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"tuba" \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 130 \clef bass \key g \major \time 2/2 \once \override NoteHead.color = #red e2 \ff b \override NoteHead.color = #red d~ \times 2/3 { d4 c \override NoteHead.color = #black b } \override NoteHead.color = #red c2.~\startTrillSpan c8. \override NoteHead.color = #black g16\stopTrillSpan \override NoteHead.color = #red ais2\accent\staccato fis\accent\staccato } (For some short piano pieces written completely in whole-tone scale, see Nos. 1, 6, and 7 from
V.A. Rebikov's Празднество (
Une fête), Op. 38, from 1907.)
H. C. Colles names as the "childhood of the whole-tone scale" the music of
Berlioz and
Schubert in France and Austria and then Russians Glinka and Dargomyzhsky.
Claude Debussy, who had been influenced by Russians, along with other
impressionist composers made extensive use of whole-tone scales.
Voiles, the second piece in Debussy's first book of
Préludes, is almost entirely within one whole-tone scale. The opening measures are shown below. : { \new PianoStaff 8--~(_\markup { \dynamic p \italic "très doux" } 32 8..\32 4)\> r4\! 8--~(_\markup { \dynamic p } 32\> \! 4~_\markup { \italic "più" \dynamic p } 16\> )\! } >> \new Staff > >> }
Janáček's use of the scale in the bracing opening to the second movement of his
Sinfonietta is, to quote William W. Austin, "utterly different". Austin writes, "Janáček’s free
chromaticism never loses touch with a diatonic scale for long. Though the whole-tone scale is prominent in much of his music after 1905 when he encountered Debussy, it serves simply to fit the motifs over
augmented chords. The same motifs return from the whole-tone to the diatonic scale without emphasizing the contrast." The first measures of the second movement of
Sinfonietta are shown below.
Giacomo Puccini used whole-tone scales as well as
pentatonic scales in his 1904 opera
Madama Butterfly to imitate east Asian music styles. The first of
Alban Berg's
Seven Early Songs opens with a whole-tone passage both in the orchestral accompaniment and in the vocal line that enters a bar later. Berg also quotes the Bach chorale setting referred to above in his
Violin Concerto. The last four notes of the
12-tone row Berg used are B, C, E and F, which, together with the first note, G, comprise five of the six notes of the scale.)
Béla Bartók also uses whole-tone scales in his
fifth string quartet.
Ferruccio Busoni used the whole-tone scale in the right hand part of the "Preludietto, Fughetta ed Esercizio" of his
An die Jugend, and
Franz Liszt had used the technique as early as 1831, in the
Grande Fantaisie sur La clochette. ==Jazz==