Gazing at the Night Sky - Composition Walkthrough Pt.4 - Bars 37 - 49

In this part of the composition walkthrough for GAZING AT THE NIGHT SKY, we're having a look at the section with the contrasting B-Theme. 

As usual, we're gonna work with score reductions here, the complete score sheet is attached at the bottom of the post.

The previous parts of this walkthrough are available here.

Bars 37-40

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/gazing-at-the-night-sky-bars-37-49/s-Sys4MTff82t 

I mentioned already that the idea of the secondary theme was to be strongly contrasting to the main theme, which is a strategy that has been employed for centuries in classical music (e.g. in sonata forms of classical symphonies that have two contrasting themes).

I wanted this secondary theme to be different on many levels from the main theme. The contrasting elements are:

• longer legato notes rather than shorter more accented notes
• rhythmically less diverse and more flowing
• harmonically more complex and less predictable
• texturally driven by strings rather than brass
• less "fat" and bold in the orchestration

In general, I wanted this whole section to feel rather unpredictable in its path, taking unexpected harmonic turns here and there and generally feeling more "searching" or "undecided". If you want to interpret it contextually with the title you could see it as more of the "awe and wonder and surprise" part of the piece rather than the "adventure" part.

In the previous section we have an Ab major tonality with the dominant of Eb that is preceding bar 37. The tonality here shifts to an Emaj7/G# which at least from the bass note movement feels like a V-I, however shifting to Emaj7 or technically more correct Fbmaj7 opens up a new harmonic dimension for this piece. While there is a definitive tonal connection between the preceding A part in Ab major and the now starting B part which continues in Fbmaj7, we could consider the Fb as a so called harmonic modal interchange which borrows a chord from the parallel minor of Ab major which would be Ab minor, which contains this Fbmaj7 chord.

The remaining path of this section is less clear in a way that it even defies pointing out a clear tonal center. Even from these very first 4 bars which keep altering between Fbmaj7 and Eb, it's hard to define which of the two has more tonic quality. Theoretically, it should be the Fb as it is justified stronger by that cadential motion mentioned above, but I personally feel the second chord of Eb feeling more like a tonic with the Fb being something like that classic bIImaj7 moving to I motion that is very common.

I spoke in other parts of this tutorial already in great lengths about the special twist that the melody puts on top of the chords here so I'm just gonna reference you to that article here.

By the way the decision to go for Fbmaj instead of E major here might seem counter intuitive considering our goal to write as easy as possible for sight reading players as obviously E has considerable fewer accidentals than Fb, however in this case I went for this decisions as from my experience, players prefer to stay in the same type of accidentals for as long as possible. In this case I would have needed to switch back and forth between sharps (for E) and flats for (Eb) which would have made that passage more awkward to read than this Fb. In spite of the awkward key I can say that not even with the first run through there wasn't any reading error in this part.

The orchestration here differs quite drastically from the part before. The most essential thing here is that I dropped out almost the entire low register. The only low end is provided by a few pizzicato notes on rather weak beats in the double basses which help us to understand the bass notes of these harmonies. The main melody is carried from bar 37-40 by the violins, doubled by flutes (also an octave lower) and bassoon (yet another octave lower). I personally really like that combination and use it quite often as it combines the airyness of the flute with the warmth of the bassoon.

The horns provide a harmonic backdrop in close position chords with a slight preference for offbeats. As the melody moves quite consistently in quarter notes, I felt like I needed a rhythmical counterpart to not make this quarter pulse too static.

I felt it was necessary to keep a certain rhythmical momentum going in this part as the energy drop would have been too drastic if I had gone to a quarter pulse so I used violas, celli and clarinets to provide eighth (or rather 16th note) pulse in a middle register figure that more or less uses the same notes as the horns, yet can be texturally differentiated due to the different tone colours.

Bar 41-44

Bar 40 sees a shift in tonality to Ab/C followed by a Cbmaj7 chord. This is harmonic relation to what we just had just a major third higher and the second chord becoming a root position rather than having a third bass. If we were to mirror exactly, the Cbmaj7 chord would be a G/B. However that exact mirroring would have felt not particularly moving forward. In spite of the restlessness of this section and harmonic uncertainty, I of course needed to transition back to the main theme, so it was necessary to pick up energy again gradually to lead back to the big theme in a plausible way.

So the configuraton changes a bit here. The clarinet/viola/cello pulse remains as is, however the lower octaves of the melody drop out and make space for an independent side line in the horns. If I kept the flutes and bassoon lower octaves in it would clash with that line. As this side line moves rhythmically quite identical with the main melody (as placing it into off beats would have made it way too nervous) I needed to make sure that they have enough space there.

You might notice that also the low brass enter with rather sustained chords which also cross the range of that horn line. However due to that "pad" not really moving much, it is way less problematic regarding any interference with the horn line compared to the problems that a quarter note moving melody from specifically bassoon would have created there.

The choice of harmony here doesn't follow much of a bigger harmonic relation but rather moves around that descending semitone in the bass between two chords that give it some structural integrity as seen already in bars 37-40.

Looking at the melody in bars 41-44 we can see that the general idea of the quarter note movment remains but the melodic gesture seems like a sequence in bars 41,42 and 43 constantly moving downwards. 

Bar 43 and 44 harmonically bring us back to the Fb and Eb chord we had at the beginning already, only this time with different bass notes.

As you might have notices already, I really love using other notes than the root of a chord as just this seemingly little change can create so much colourful harmony and this section is no exception. Just that choice of going for different bass notes here give that progression a completely different feeling. And especially that Ebmaj7/G in bar 44 feels like a quite dramatic shift in spite of being established as chord already. The change of bass note is just part of the reason why. The other part is that on reaching that downbeat of 44, two melodic lines have a clearly noticeable chromatic alteration from the bar before. Bar 43 has a Eb in the Violins which becomes a D natural in 44 and the horns in bar 43 have a Gb right before a G natural on the downbeat in 44. Normally you would expect a chromatic alteration to darken the perception but in this case they make it considerably brighter as they propel the tonality towards the sharper key signature of Eb (compared to Fb where we come from). This literally is like a catapult across almost the entire circle of fifth (as we move 5 degrees towards sharp (Fb technically having 8 flats, Eb having 3). I tried to make both chromatic alterations melodically plausible by leading to them chromatically (eb-d and gb-g) and I really love how this "harmonic catapult" works.

If we want to dive really deep here, we could compare it with the first 4 bars of this passage which seemingly has the same chord progressions (apart from the bass) but here, the factor of scale-chord relationship comes into play. If you just look at the chords, it seems like 43/44 are practically identical, however if we directly compare 38 and 44 we see that there are quite different scales at play on top. In 38 we have a b6 (Cb) in the melody which makes this scale considerably darker than that clear Eb major in 44 which is considerably brighter. You could maybe call it  a "scalar development".

Bar 45-49

These bars are picking up speed again for the entrance of the main theme in bar 50. Again the motion of the bass note down a semitone is central element of the chord progression (here between Cm and G/B). Coming from Eb, the chord of Cm in bar 45 doesn't change anything on the tonality, yet it feels like a "proper" chord progression due to the cadential bass movement of G-C. Bar 46 seems like the "tonal brightening" process is continueing by pushing towards a G/B but again, it is essential to look at the entire picture here. This particular bar is harmonically quite interesting. 

As you might have noticed, I also establish a new element in 45 of ascending woodwind scales starting on each count two. In 45 this is (as expected) the C natural minor scale, however in 46, the scale tones remain identical making it into a G phrygian scale. However, that scale doesn't include the B (major third) that is the bass note in that bar. Technically this shouldn't work and I tried several alternatives, however decided to stay with the "illegal" scale as it just gave me exactly the sound that I wanted there. This woodwind scale motion with the actual clash between Bb (and C) and B happens so briefly that it shouldn't bother anybody, however as the phrygian is implied right from the beginning of that run it should very well "rub against the grain" there but surprisingly I don't find that bar offending at all. Bar 47 brings us to a Db lydian so the Eb/Cm from bar 44/45 were the "brightness peaks" in that section.

Particularly bar 49 becomes quite "dark" again with its Ebsus4b9 dominant. The reason is that I wanted to create a considerable lift when the theme hits back again in bar 50 in Ab.

One important thing to mention is that from bar 50 onwards, the rhythmical subdivision of the bars change from 16ths (that we had until now) to triplet eights, effectively making the following passage into a 12/8 feel. In order to not make that switch too abrupt, I don't just use 49 to build up dynamically and create a strong V for the following I but also use it to strongly establish that triplet feeling so that it feels plausible in the next section.