--- Steve Freides <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: You have all read Steves fine posting, so I wont quote it.
It made me wonder, why I never really can remember the precise composition of the Napolitan chord. So I found it on a web page, and then I knew why: During my musicological studies, I have been quite a bit around jazz theory. And there the same chord (Db in C major is not considered a subdominant, but a tritone-substitution for the dominant, usually with the Db in the bass and with at least a minor seventh added. The classical purpose of the Napolitan chord is to approach the Tonica in the melody line from a semitone above via a semitone below (the leading note). The jazz purpose is to approach the root in a chromatic way. The normal jazz cadenza in a simplified version is ii7-V7-I. In C major giving the bass line D-G-C. The substitution version is ii7-bII7-I giving the bass line of D-Db-C. For me there is no split between the classical and the jazz approaches, as they are all about creating a tension to be released on the Tonica. This relates to a recent thread about Lacher, where Hans like the other posters excluded the alleged horn obligato to be intended for horn. Hans suggested the zink/cornetto, which I applauded. The Napolitan discussion took me back to the Lacher score, as I remembered a figure of some soloist line notes with a sequence similar to that of a Napolitan cadenza. They were not true Napolitan, rather sort of appogiaturas leading to the main note, which in casu was the third of the subdominant. This is all very subtle in a horn context, but it leads to the point of several posters including me: horn players shall play their horn well, but they shall also be thorough musicians, which includes knowledge of style and of harmony. I only have played Mendelssohns violin concerto once at a reading. I was 2nd horn and another, very good, but back then quite young, list member was first. Most of the way we played in natural horn harmonies for horn in E, but suddenly we had to play one or more top-of-the-staff Fs in unisono. Not an obvious range to meat within. But there is a clear reason behind the composers writing. Which is that reason? Only to be told by those knowing about orchestral horn playing of the period. Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
