Help with identifying the key....again.

[theholygideons]

I'm reading through these few bars...but it seems so tonally ambiguous (to me, at least). When it looks like g minor, it starts to look like B flat minor, and so on, until i become confused.  

[liszt1022]

Which chords do you need help with? There are lots in your image.

[theholygideons]

Woops, my bad, I was meant to say, 'help with identifying the key (tonality) of the passage'

[liszt1022]

What piece is this? It sounds like it's written past the eras of easy tonality.

[lelle]

I'm reading through these few bars...but it seems so tonally ambiguous (to me, at least). When it looks like g minor, it starts to look like B flat minor, and so on, until i become confused. 

It's not such a bad conclusion that it is tonally ambigous. Play a F#dim followed by an A dim. As you can see these chords contain the same pitches even if you would spell them differently. Now play a F# dim followed by a g minor and then an A dim followed by a b flat minor. Notice how the dim chords sound like dominants to the following chord. But both the dim chords are the same chord, just in different inversions, but they (and the rest of the inversions) can act as dominants to completely different keys (to E and D flat as well!), so if there is lots of dim the listener probably will be unsure where it's going to land. This is a tool composers can use to navigate between different keys.

In your passage he mixes a lot of different ways to spell the dim. And it's like 12 bars of just dim. But I'd say he is aiming to eventually land in the B flat tonality. In last 4-5 bars before the double line the chords contain a, c flat, e flat, g flat which together with an f would make an F major b9 b5 chord, which is a dominant in a B flat key (if you just listen to the pitches of the "F major" chord it sounds like a B major 7 chord but the spelling tells you he is in B flat and thus it is the dominant). However he keeps the feeling of missing a secure home key up by landing on a B flat 7 instead of a "pure" tonic. But before that it is pretty ambiguous, as you say.

It would be interesting to know what happens in the piece before and after this passage. Which piece is it?

[theholygideons]

It's not such a bad conclusion that it is tonally ambigous. Play a F#dim followed by an A dim. As you can see these chords contain the same pitches even if you would spell them differently. Now play a F# dim followed by a g minor and then an A dim followed by a b flat minor. Notice how the dim chords sound like dominants to the following chord. But both the dim chords are the same chord, just in different inversions, but they (and the rest of the inversions) can act as dominants to completely different keys (to E and D flat as well!), so if there is lots of dim the listener probably will be unsure where it's going to land. This is a tool composers can use to navigate between different keys.

In your passage he mixes a lot of different ways to spell the dim. And it's like 12 bars of just dim. But I'd say he is aiming to eventually land in the B flat tonality. In last 4-5 bars before the double line the chords contain a, c flat, e flat, g flat which together with an f would make an F major b9 b5 chord, which is a dominant in a B flat key (if you just listen to the pitches of the "F major" chord it sounds like a B major 7 chord but the spelling tells you he is in B flat and thus it is the dominant). However he keeps the feeling of missing a secure home key up by landing on a B flat 7 instead of a "pure" tonic. But before that it is pretty ambiguous, as you say.

It would be interesting to know what happens in the piece before and after this passage. Which piece is it?

The piece is just Alkan's symphony for solo piano, 2nd page. Nothing hard pianistically speaking.

Ahh.. diminished chords acting as dominants and resolving to different keys.. I should really study ahead more in theory. Now that I think about it again, it just looks like standard romantic style writing with all those chromaticisms and dim. 7th chords.

One thing, Isn't that a, c flat, e flat, g flat chord the dominant of E though?

[lelle]

One thing, Isn't that a, c flat, e flat, g flat chord the dominant of E though?

It certainly looks that way if you just press the indicated keys down on the piano. But if he viewed it as a dominant of E he would have spelled it as a normal B major 7 chord. Not to mention there is no E major chord in sight. Reading it as the dominant of B flat - F major but missing its root note and with a flat 5th, 7th and 9th, fits together both with the B flat chord that comes after the double barlines and the spelling he chose. Looking at the rest of the piece the B flat 7 resolves to E flat in bar 54, so it's ye olde circle of fifths again, F - B flat - E flat.

It's not uncommon that the romantics lower the fifth in their dominants a semitone to create for example chromatic basslines, modulation or more tonally ambiguous passages etc. Check out bars 33-35 in Chopin op 10 no 1 for example. If I recall correctly even Mozart did it.

P.S. I've studied function analysis so if you are used to using I IV II etc the way I analyse these things might not feel so obvious.

[cabbynum]

It certainly looks that way if you just press the indicated keys down on the piano. But if he viewed it as a dominant of E he would have spelled it as a normal B major 7 chord. Not to mention there is no E major chord in sight. Reading it as the dominant of B flat - F major but missing its root note and with a flat 5th, 7th and 9th, fits together both with the B flat chord that comes after the double barlines and the spelling he chose. Looking at the rest of the piece the B flat 7 resolves to E flat in bar 54, so it's ye olde circle of fifths again, F - B flat - E flat.

It's not uncommon that the romantics lower the fifth in their dominants a semitone to create for example chromatic basslines, modulation or more tonally ambiguous passages etc. Check out bars 33-35 in Chopin op 10 no 1 for example. If I recall correctly even Mozart did it.

P.S. I've studied function analysis so if you are used to using I IV II etc the way I analyse these things might not feel so obvious.

Just wait till the 4th movement... Some weird stuff going on in there

[theholygideons]

It certainly looks that way if you just press the indicated keys down on the piano. But if he viewed it as a dominant of E he would have spelled it as a normal B major 7 chord. Not to mention there is no E major chord in sight. Reading it as the dominant of B flat - F major but missing its root note and with a flat 5th, 7th and 9th, fits together both with the B flat chord that comes after the double barlines and the spelling he chose. Looking at the rest of the piece the B flat 7 resolves to E flat in bar 54, so it's ye olde circle of fifths again, F - B flat - E flat.

It's not uncommon that the romantics lower the fifth in their dominants a semitone to create for example chromatic basslines, modulation or more tonally ambiguous passages etc. Check out bars 33-35 in Chopin op 10 no 1 for example. If I recall correctly even Mozart did it.

P.S. I've studied function analysis so if you are used to using I IV II etc the way I analyse these things might not feel so obvious.

Thanks for the explanation, quite illuminating! that chord was really confusing, ha. I hate how we play things in our teens, yet don't understand fully the inner workings of how the piece is constructed, especially 20th century pieces, they sound so good, yet I have no clue what's happening harmonically.

[lelle]

Thanks for the explanation, quite illuminating! that chord was really confusing, ha. I hate how we play things in our teens, yet don't understand fully the inner workings of how the piece is constructed, especially 20th century pieces, they sound so good, yet I have no clue what's happening harmonically.

Glad I could help It is difficult to analyse a lot of 20th century music because after the Romantic period composers intentionally started to abandon classical and/or tonal harmony.