On one hand (bars 4-7) the tonic leads to a chord on the 6th degree (A), then a true novelty is introduced, the F sharp: this D major
diminished seventh chord plays the function of a dominant seventh chord for G--and in fact the perfect triad on G follows (bar 7).
The half
diminished seventh chord in the key of D in m.
Huron asserts that musicians have demonstrated an exquisite skill in evoking "the profoundly sad, the twistedly absurd, and the deeply awe-inspiring." In music, composers absorb a number of cliches: tragedy can be evoked by using predominantly minor chords played with rich sonorities in the bass register, suspense can be evoked using a
diminished seventh chord with rapid tremolo, and surprise can be evoked by introducing a loud chromatic chord on a weak beat.
F: It is perfectly true that the work has the ambivalence that you have in the
diminished seventh chord, and, therefore, when you're thinking of its tonality, it really could be almost any tonality within that hexachordal situation.
The third beat of measure 11 returns to the B minor triad, only to progress to a chord in measure 12 (A [flat] D F E) that can be heard (if we again substitute G[sharp] for A [flat]) as a submediant seventh with diminished seventh and added sixth, a close relative of the common-tone
diminished seventh chord. These motions away from the tonic to a dissonant chord on the submediant seem to depict the notion of love passing--after measure 11, the complete tonic of B minor never returns, and the home key consequen tly becomes more ambiguous.
Broadly speaking, C major is used in connection with the realm of good, and D major with the natural world, while evil, unnatural forces are associated most strongly with C minor.(2) At the same time; the opera employs at least one virtually leitmotivic element in the F[sharp]
diminished seventh chord associated with Samiel.(3) This chord is expressed not only as a simultaneity but also, in the Wolf's Glen scene of Act II, as a succession of tonal centres: F[sharp]-C-E[flat]-A-C-A-C-F[sharp].
The use of the
diminished seventh chord as a shock tactic was killed off by nineteenth century piano music, but this does not mean that a contemporary piece without such chords is better than Beethoven.
72 instead of a tonic chord, which progresses to a secondary seven
diminished seventh chord. This chromatic chord creates forward motion through the end of the first variation into the second, only reaching its resolution in the dominant chord in m.
He also accepts that, at the outset of this passage, 'Fricka violently disrupts the tonicized dominant with a
diminished seventh chord': yet his voice-leading reduction (Ex.
For example, a D
diminished seventh chord and an F#
diminished seventh chord belong to the prime form [0369].
While the revised version culminates in the familiar trill on the dominant in both hands, the original version concludes with an agogic accent on a
diminished seventh chord, which then arpeggiales downward to return to the tonic.
It is actually the analogue, in the twenty-tone system, of the
diminished seventh chord in N = 12.