Re: klezmer melodic contours 5

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

The *tag* ending in klezmer music, if you listen real close to some of
the American recordings, often uses the harmonies of (in D) D-Cm-D,
while the melody plays D-A-D, or vice versa. This results in a one-beat
polymodal dissonance on the Cm chord, because the Cm chord has an A in
the melody for 1 beat. Jazz players might want to call that a Cm6 chord,
or in its inversion an Am7b5, but sometimes someone plays the 3rd of the
chord, so you get an A major chord with a C and Eb in the melody(!),
which is a nicely soiled, down and dirty dissonance. Therefore I hear it
as 2 layers consisting of a *tonal* melody line against a *modal*
harmonic cadence, or: a *modal* melody line against a *tonal* harmonic
cadence. But you do later get a straight D-A-D melodic cadence against a
tonal D-A-D harmony, as Alex mentions - clean, scrubbed, depilotated,
politically correct, purged of pornographic reference, fit for use in
all homes with children under15  and delightfully Orwellian in its
societal implications. Needless to say, it has become the standard
nowadays. Here's a summary of the cadences I just mentioned: 

1) Unimodal (possible earlier cadence)
            melody: D  -  Eb  -  D
                    Bass: D  -  C    -  D  

2) Polymodal (see Ch'sidishe Nigunim, Boibriker Kapelle on Arhoolie:
Early Yiddish Instrumental Music CD 1908-1927, track 9, end of part 1
ca.1:30):
                 melody: D  -  C-Eb  -  D
                     Bass: D  -  A      -  D  

3) Polymodal variant, with Cm in bass (many early Tarras recordings):
                melody: D  -  A  -    D
                    Bass: D  -  Cm -  D  

4) Tonal
                melody: D  -  A  -  D
                    Bass: D  -  A  -  D (chords)
   
Regarding the use of the polymodal cadences. I think this may go further
back than expected. I've included this example in a previous mail, but
will do it again to illustrate the idea: A fascinating satire of Jewish
dance music was composed by the court composer of Innsbruck, Hans
Newsidler, entitled ?Der Juden Tantz?, from Em new künstlich Lautenbuch,
1544, reprinted in Paul Nettl´s Alte jüdische Spielleute und Musiker (
Nettl´s book was originally a lecture held in Prag), Verlag Dr. Josef J.
Flesch, Prag, 1923. The music of this example shows a melody written in
D# major (!) over a pedal tone E which does not change during the entire
course of the 21 bar piece. The repetitive motives and the conspicuous
bi-tonality of the satire are perhaps based on actual characteristics of
Jewish Dance music. It is not clear which milieu Newsidler is
satirizing, nor which region.  The music is perhaps only intended to
parody bad intonation, but could also be based on a more or less general
tendency toward modal mixing, which has been carried over even into the
early period of Klezmer music in the 20th Century. 

The tune above is not in a *mode* so the comparison has to be made
carefully. I think that modal mixing WAS typical to the style of klezmer
for a long time though, by virtue of the fact that musicians seemed to
liked dissonance, and never seemd to care that much about harmonic
correctness until the present day. 

So, it seems possible that the tonal melodic cadence with the chromatic
approach D-A (chromatic line....)-D was "grafted on" to the modal tunes
of klezmer music. It's clearly a tonal cadence, as it is approached by
the leading tone in the upper octave, which the modes tend to use in the
LOWER and not higher octaves in the body of the tunes. 

Each era of classical music has its own sets of cadences which are
specific to it and help define its style. I don't know of any cadences
from 18th century symphonies which use a chromatic line, in that way
though. It seems to be a salon music cadence, and is too banal for the
hard-core 
*style galant* The D-A-D melody cadence is so common as a melodic
cadence in classical music that it hardly deserves mention, though. Josh

Matt Jaffey wrote:
> >For whatever it's worth, on his instructional video, Andy Statman pointed
> >out the similarity of this ending to the endings of symphonic works in (I
> >believe he said) the 18th century, and speculated that imitation of the
> >symphonic works may have been the source. I suppose it could also have been
> >the other way around if related at all.

Alex Singer wrote:
> If a melody ends with a D, followed by an A, followed by a D one octave up
> from the first D, you could see how one would chord it as D minor, followed
> by an A major followed by D minor, which for D minor would translate into a
> chord on the first degree of the scale, then on the fifth degree and then
> on the first degree, or a I V I chord progression.  The chord progression V
> I is referred to as a perfect cadence, and was used as an ending for all
> Western Classical music since the 1600's, symphonic or otherwise.  This
> ending thus could have diffused from the court musicians into the Jewish,
> gypsy, eastern european peasant music cultures over the next 300 years or
> so.  My whole point here is that Andy Statman may see a similarity, but I'm
> not sure it's valid.


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