Composing Phrase by Phrase 9

Completing the Cadence

Hello and welcome or welcome back to Composing Phrase by Phrase, the music blog where I compose... phrase by phrase. Just like it says on the tin.

Last week! I started a cadential phrase to balance the first theme and bring the composition to its first big resting point. We also built up a lot of steam in the process, with chugging, Stravinsky-esque rhythms and dissonances. Now, I need to let off the pedal some. Here's the second part of the cadential period:

phrase 4

The phrase kicks off with the quartet coming into unison, first rhythmically, then also in pitch. The dotted-eight+sixteenth chords drive to a sudden halt on an A in sixteenths (going on seventeenths). A couple of points: the dotted-eighth+sixteenth rhythm has been heard before, way back at the beginning.

mms.1-2 vs. m.25

In the first phrase, the rhythm was used to allow a more graceful ending to the violin's statement of a motivic fragment. In this case, it's acting a bit like the shocks on car wheels, absorbing some of the impact from the bumpy ride that came before as the brakes kick in.

For the sixteenth-note A's, I wanted to point out the octave jump from the first to the second sixteenth-note. I could have simply done four A's all at the same level, like this:

m.26 no leap

Adding this leap helps for two reasons. First, it's a little bit more interesting. It's already marked with an accent, but introducing this leap helps mark the first note of the group, getting it to pop out of the texture a bit more.

Second, it helps one of the needs I have for this phrase's melodic arc. That is to say, I need to go down. The violins have been steadily rising over the past two phrases, and what goes up, etc. etc. This sudden, precipitous drop jerks the melodic arc in the other direction, starting the process of winding down the musical energy.

Speaking of sudden stops. This phrase also makes use of a common cadential technique. Let's say you need to music to come to a rest, but you don't want the music to stop. One thing you can do is to write the cadence and bring some, but not all, of the ensemble to a rest while some other part of the ensemble keeps playing. This technique is called "elision," and it's all over the place. A very useful way to have your cake and eat it, too.

For this section, violin 2, viola, and cello cut off abruptly and rather unceremoniously. Violin 1 sustains a high A, allowing a sense of continuity while also letting out the air a little bit. A short descending chromatic scale is followed by another statement of the dotted-eighth+sixteenth note motive, descending again, but quietly.

The aforementioned cadential trick is repeated on a smaller scale. Violin 2 drops out, cello repeats the sixteenth-note octave jump, and viola plays the sustained tone. One last statement of the idea is played, now only by viola and cello. This is a decent example of a common way composers build or decrease musical tension. Repeat the same thing but with more (for rising tension) or less (for lowering) each time. The process can be generalized without repetition, as well, creating crescendi and decrescendi not just through dynamics but also through the arrangement.

For two quintessential examples of orchestrated crescendi, check out Ravel's Bolero and the final movement of Respighi's Pines of Rome. For the opposite, look at Holst's Neptune from his suite, The Planets.

Onwards and downwards! At the phrase's end, the cello is down in its lower register all on its lonesome. To help drive home the dwindling energy of the phrase, the tempo marking Poco Meno Mosso is used to instruct the cellist to play a little slower. That low point doesn't last too long, though. When the cello plays the descending chromatic scale portion of the idea, the two violins come in and accompany it with a scale of their own, ascending in contrasting motion.

This use of contrasting scalar motion is, incidentally, an expansion of an old cadential trope in which the outer voices resolve the penultimate chord to the final by step in opposite directions. It's especially used in late medieval and Renaissance European music, like this:

modal cadence

Alright, that's about it for today! A shorter post, but there was also less going on in this phrase than the others. If you enjoyed reading, consider following the blog on your RSS feed. If you really enjoyed reading, consider contributing on my Patreon where you'll get audio samples of the work in progress, as well as scores and audio files of other compositions that don't make it onto my website.

Either way, thanks for joining me!