Stanford: The Blue Bird (piano)

Charles Villiers Stanford's "The Blue Bird," a five-part a cappella partsong, here played on the piano with harmonic analysis provided to show how frequently (about 35% of the time) the composer uses minor 7th chords (shown in blue in the Roman numeral analysis).
Read more about it here: mmmusing.blogsp...

[@dalcrozedigital]

This is a very helpful resource. Thanks for sharing it. Is your PDF version available on your website?

[@wesleynewcomb]

This really just highlights to me how Roman numeral notation isn't really useful for much past the Romantic period. Seeing all the minor seventh chords is interesting though!

[@MMmusing]

It's a good point - none of the secondary dominants even resolve to the right place| They're much more about voice-leading than Roman numeral function, but once I started, I decided to stay this way, though perhaps just chord symbols would've been more useful.

[@MMmusing]

Nonetheless - and I'm kicking myself that I didn't include measure numbers, so I might re-do this - each verse has a fairly tonal plan once it starts towards the cadence with a sort of overall vi-ii-V-I circle progression (with some elaborations). The avoidance of cadences within each verse is part of what makes it work so well because we get that sense of lingering - which suggests to me that the expectations of tonal harmony are still at play. But there are certainly impressionistic aspects to this piece.

[@mordy91]

@@MMmusing I see what you both are talking about with the more modern and impresionistic sound. However I would say some of the places with seemingly non-typical resolutions of the secondary (and normal) dominants could be explained within typical functional harmony terms if you take even more auxilary chords into consideration and choose to analyse it in such a manner. Example the climax of the verses on “wings” and “image” respectively with the high a in the soprano you could analyse the iii7 as a auxilary chord for I6 thereby getting the very common V2 -> I6. Also similar in the second verse on “it caught” the vi7 we also saw in the first verse could here be analysed as an auxilary chord to the following IV chord thereby making the V7/IV -> IV cadence. Also when talking about the ii chord in the begining of the verse where the harmony alters between I and ii, to my ear it is clearly a IV chord. Not a ii chord. At least functionwise. Thereby it would be an altering between I and IV (And shortly thereafter i and iv in the relative minor key.) If you analyse it in this way the very last V7/IV chord resolves as expected which I think further points at it being IV) I am aware about the fact that the roman numerals are based on chords of stacked thirds from a given bass note (especially triads and seven chords and their inversions) and therefore it would be uncommon to classify a chord as an add6-chord as well as it also quickly would be mistaken for a triad chord in first inversion when adding a 6 to indicate add6 due to the different nature of the roman numerals underlying figured bass notation versus normal chord symbol notation. I am also aware of the debate and controversy about the subdominant in classical music being either ii or IV (ex ii7 or IV with an add6) and how the bass note can be somehow obscured or seen as somewhere in between where both answers can be experienced and justified. In Denmark where I live we use an extended academic functional harmony analysis for classical music a lot inside the schools and concervatoirs (but also sometimes roman numeral analysis). Here it is quite common to see all kinds of alterations of subdominant IV-chords like with added sixth and even added sixth without the fifth making it seem like a perfect ii-chord in first inversion but still having the bass Root of IV making it function as a IV-chord rather than a ii-chord. I think this is the strength of functional harmony analysis With this you can still analyse the and see the functions and reach an analysis where you would see the harmony make perfect sense within traditional funcrional harmony (however at times a bit obscured) revealing even more traditional functional harmony within the piece that would otherwise not be as visible with traditional roman numeral analysis. If you already know about extended functional harmony I am sorry to explain it in such a way as if one didn’t know it. I am not aware of how known advanced academic functional harmony beyond the more basic unnuanced functional harmony with just tonic, subdominant, dominant (and only if we get really fancy, secondary dominants as well) is known out of Germany and some of the nordic countries like Denmark.

[@MMmusing]

@@mordy91 Lots to think about here, thanks! I'll admit my analysis is pretty old-fashioned/simplistic even for Stanford's harmony. Was mostly interested in showing the frequent use of the minor-seventh chord sonority (or whatever you want to call it) but agree that the interpretation of added notes versus thirds-stacking functionality can get hazy. To some degree its semantics, but I'll concede that (as Wesley first suggested) the analysis shown isn't always satisfactory.

[@gabriel6perez]

Hey, hello! 😊 Can you send me the pdf of this? Thank you!

[@SethEngel]

Do you have a pdf of this

[@MMmusing]

Yes, I can supply a pdf.

[@SethEngel]

Thanks