How would you analyze this ?

[m1469]

Excerpt from Shostakovich prelude in a minor, Op 87 no 2 : (4/4 time, btw)


Analysis is one of my weakest points and I am trying to address it sincerely.  One of the ways I am trying to address this is by taking the pieces I am working on and finding the solutions in there.

So beat one and two of that first measure, I would say is an e minor chord.  But I am lost immediately afterward.  Because of the "a" and "e" laying exactly on beat 3, I would be inclinded to lable that an a minor chord, but the arpeggiation immediately following is obviously not an a minor chord.  It looks like an e 7.   Maybe they would be analyzed separately, but that does not make any sense to me.  And by now, I feel like I have no idea what I am doing...

Insights would be very appreciated.

Thanks,
m1469

[pianistimo]

i see the accents on the 'e' in the left and right hand, and immediately think e minor, too.  just variations (using tonal and passing notes to surround - although it might be considered a bit atonal as well even though e minor is v in the key of a-natural minor.   it is not using the usual harmonic or melodic minor, but the natural minor.  it sounds modern (atonal).  he uses all the notes of the scale of natural a minor (or C major) to relate to the v chord.  there is a little mirroring going on if you follow patterns (say all the second, third and fourth notes of the lh in the groups of 16ths).  sometimes the composers got into patterns more than harmonies.  it makes for interesting analysis.  color pencils work - and just being creative - or reading about the composer's own analysis.

ps  wonders if shostakovich was like bach, schumann, and brahms (using letters of loved one's names).  he loved a lady named elmira. thus the 'e's?'

www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai111_folder/111_articles/111_shostokovich_elmira.html

[omnisis]

This is an interesting piece.  The second and fourth beats of every measure are a melodic figuration, that adds tension to the upper note by playing the note a second below it.  The repeated Es in the treble and A/C in the bass on the third beat of every measure seem to set up a  "framework" of a minor but then there are flashes of other chords throughout this fragment that are "superimposed" on this framework.  This is actually not too weird and I've seen it before in other pieces.  Aurally I'd imagine the effect is one in which you expect a certain sound but then little deviations are made and the corresponding dissonances set up tension.  I haven't tried to play this fragment but here's my analysis w/o touching the keyboard.

Measure 1 - The 1st beat in the measure (E,C,A) implies an am chord
                   The 3rd beat definately implies a Em7 chord with  (E,D,B,G).
                   The use of a v7 instead of the normal V7 (harmonic minor) is
                    pretty strange.

Measure 2 - The first beat starts out with (B,E) which is an EM or em chord with
                   third missing (interesting amniguity, your ear prolly wants to hear
                   an EM here) and then transitions to (D,C,A,F) which implies a dm7
                   chord but with an E thrown in. 

                   The third beat (E,C,A,G) is a minor on the first three 1/16 notes
                   then he switches to an F which doesn't fit but if you play the third
                   and fouth beats fast enough you might be able to detect the
                   GFB pattern and thus get a G7 out of it. 

Measure 3 - The first beat (E,B,A,G,F,B) is interesting you can see
                    "pieces" of an em chord in there and a G7 and again they
                    are kind of "superimposed" on one another.

                    The fourth beat is (E,B,A,D) which could imply an em (minus the
                    third or dm (minus the third).  This is really stretching it though.


Personally I wouldn't try to do too much harmonic analysis on a piece like this.
Not all pieces lend themselves to harmonic analysis.  Bach or Mozart would be
a much better way to practice that kind of analysis.  With this piece I think the key is  identifying the "a minor framework" and the repeated second pattern following  descending note runs.

~omnisis
                   
           

[pianistimo]

i've been thinking about this prelude of shostakovich a lot.  between tonal music and atonal.  shostakovich was starting to limit atonal music (from the chromaticism of schoenberg, webern, and berg) from chromaticism back to a seven tone scale and like prokoviev, he realized the importance of melody (even 'shards' of it - or romanticism - in twentieth century music). 

so, we used to have (in tonal music) two centers.  The major and the minor (C major, a minor).  now, here in shostakovich, we have a relatedness to all the chords of a seven tone scale (no distinction of I- VI- V - as major useable chords either) and in fact - on certain tones, they have a sort of modal sound.  normally, we would analyze pieces on their related minor scale:

a, c, e = i
b, d, f = ii dim
c, e, g = III
d, f, a = iv   and so on

but, as i see it, shostakovich is saying, pick for yourself what your tonal center will be.  it doesn't have to be analyzed (as i understand it) in 'a' minor (according to the key signature).  this is revolutionary.  of course, shostakovich was trying to be a revolutionary because he had to concede to concessions in other areas of his life (the 'socialist realism' required by the communist party).  the freedom he found in composition probably made him very happy.

ok.  so he picks the scale of e natural minor to be the REAL scale (picked up on by the amount of e's accented).

so we have:

e g b = i
f a c = II
g b d = III

right here, we see that he's combining major and minor into one.  the minor one chord has a g and b.  the major three chord also does (plus a d).  so, we have a mingling of major/minor  and a relatedness to all the keys by the use of what omnisis mentioned about the melodic figuration (adding in more tones b, c, d, etc). 

whatever key you pick to analyze it in - be consistent.  i think consistency is the key.  i think i would rather see this piece analyzed in something other than major/minor key because it emphasizes the 'atonal' part.

[pianistimo]

this sort of stuff led into the harmonics studies that sofia bugaidulina (b. 1931) wrote.  she thought that the sonata should express the transcendence from ordinary reality to a state of joy.  this was expressed by transitioning from a low fundamental tone to its higher harmonics. 

because shostakovich was using many of the notes of the overtone series, why couldn't one use shenkerian analysis (here we go again!)?  you can plainly see the use of certain of the harmonic overtones , though not particularly in the order that they are.  but they have a certain sound when played as a bach prelude would be.  interesting!

[omnisis]

In regard to the usefulness of analysis, I most often use it as a way to aid memorization, so for instance in this piece I might remember a G-B-D-F run (or any permutation thereof) as a G7 even if a *TRUE* analysis of the piece turns up something else entirely.  A deep musical analysis would require an understanding of the composer, his history, the musical climate of the time and perhaps even the mood during the time this piece was composed.  That sort of thing is not trivial and requires a breadth of knowledge that most ppl don't have (including me).  I point this out only to show that "ANALYSIS" can have many motivations, if you are just trying to memorize the piece you might conduct one kind of analysis while if you are truly trying to understand the composer you might end up with something else entirely.


~omnisis

[prometheus]

Seems he is trying to create a phrygian mode. But this is unmaintainable if he starts to use more chords. He has to pivot on the i bII and III chords or something else very minimal to maintain E phrygian. So it will either modulate to E minor, a minor or C major and become tonal.

This is not atonal music at all, I wouldn't really dare to call this modal already but its psuedo-modal. This part is strictly diatonic, very strong 7 note hierarchy. It's just that E seems to be pushed in the King throne, at least in this part of the music. While E doesn't want F as a one of it's helpers, E wants F# (e minor). This 'disagreement' in a tonal sense is what characterises E phrygian. i to bII is a very spanish or gypsy chord progression. I think the complete progression is i bII IV.

In the end the demand that the weak king E makes for F# (also D# for E major or E harmonic minor) will weaking him and B with the help of F will dethrone him and crown C king (creating C major). To make E phrygian strong the notes D and B will need to be avoided (so in a sense Bdim and G, two chords with a dominant function. meaning they want to resolve to C, thus creating C major).

Note I didn't look very closely to the actual notes in the music and the context is going to be very important. It's just the strong E in a Cmajor/Aminor key sig and scanning the posts already made.

It seems to me this is a small exploration towards E phrygian, adding some harmonic colour and avoiding contant A minor or E minor sound. Since there is no strong E it is pretty weak. It may just sound like A minor. and since it is total diatonic the effect is pretty weak in any case.

[pianistimo]

i agree with all you've said.   just kinda wonder why shostakovich didn't more aptly name his prelude:  prelude in phrygian mode     or something like that.  why did he stay with the traditional minor tonality of C major?  was he trying to mess up theory students?  (i like his creativity)

to me, atonal means without a tonal center (whereas from your standpoint - e is king - and i agree)  so, your term pseudo-modal is quite good.  poulenc seemed to explain all this a bit further than i understand shostakovich to, but in reading about his dear elmira, it explains a lot that he was interested in eastern music (and was sort of combining it with western).  using the term A-minor to describe his prelude. 

ps also, he uses very strict timing, which is something that both eastern church music and folk music never do.  it was like he was restricting himself in one area and helping himself in another.  kind of like taking a bach prelude and keeping the rhythms and adding different notes.

[prometheus]

Probably because the whole piece is in A minor. Like I said, I didn't look very close to the example. But it seems that it doesn't make sense in a tonal sense. It seems that it is just a small modal-colored phrase in a tonal piece.

So probably this phrase isn't even phrygian in itself.

[pianistimo]

no.  i think you were on to something.  i'll go look at the rest of the piece.  am interested to learn some of them.

[m1469]

wow, I really appreciate these responses.  I will look through them more closely, but so far I am gaining a whole new perspective.

Would I get busted if I posted the score ?  just 2 pages... I don't know how it works as far as all that stuff goes.


Thanks,

m1469 

[kazoo]

I´d say this is a variant of the wellknown spanish/flamenco progression am-G-F-E (though the E-chord is substituted by a dm).The chord figuration starts on the second semiquaver (16th note)and ends on  the first 16th of beat three, or when the figure starts after the third beat it ends on the first 16th of the next bar.If we exclude the E-pedal points we get: am, G(or G6),F6(or including maj7),dm7(with a suspended e instead of d, the g is either a passing note or an 11th), dm6, am(add9/11). The E is of course a natural pedal point/suspension on the guitar, being an open string.Yes, a spanish/phrygian feel permeats this piece.