CHAPTER 5 (PART 3)
EXTENSIONS WITHIN THE BASIC STRUCTURE
The Static Coda
The tonic chord of the cadence can also be prolonged by the use of static harmony. This has the effect of delaying the end of the musical phrase. This I will refer to this as a static coda.
All the techniques explained in the previous chapters for prolonging the tonic in the opening section static harmony can be applied to the prolongation of the tonic chord in the cadence. These are:
- Static harmony deploying a variety of auxiliary chords, interspersed between tonic chords
- The use of a tonic pedal note underscoring the static harmony.
- The use of passing chords filling in between the tonic and auxiliary chords.
- The use of linear progressions filling in between the tonic and auxiliary chords or successive tonic chords.
Whilst similar to the static harmony in the opening section of the syntactic structure, in practice, static codas are often simple oscillations such as I [ V ] I or I [ IV ] I. Static Codas are very common but occur most frequently at the ends of main sections in a piece of music.
The following figure shows the form of a complete phrase extended by a static coda:
In the following example from the Mozart: Sonata K545, the final chord I is prolonged by a simple I [ V ] I chord oscillation. This is by far the most common type of static coda, especially in the classical period.
Following is a full description of this phrase:
Figure 5.3. above shows the syntactic structure for this phrase. It forms the repeat of the second subject in the recapitulation from the first movement of the Sonata.
- Bars 59. to 63: Opening Section static harmony: I [ V ] I, repeated.
The extent of the static harmony is indicated by the horizontal bracket.
- Bars 63 to 69: Closing Section dynamic harmony. This completes a full cycle of 7 α progressions followed by I - II - V (one γ and one α progression) The II to V ( D minor to G dominant) (α) progression is elaborated by a diminished 7th chromatic passing chord as indicated in the analysis. The chromatic movement is F - F # - G in parallel with D - E-flat - E-natural.
- Bars 69 and 70: The dominant chord is prolonged by a full bar cadential 6 4 appoggiatura chord. We could indicate this as a (short) dominant prolongation in the chart . The cadential 6 4 chord is indicated by a horizontal line preceding the dominant chord onto which it resolves..
- Bars 71 to 73: Cadential chord I is prolonged by a three bar static coda made up of I [ V ] I static harmony repeated. The extent of the Static Coda is indicated by the horizontal bracket.
See the thesis for how I determine the phrase boundaries.
Static codas based on I [ IV ] I static harmony are also very common, especially in church music. A good example of this is the last few bars of Handel: Hallelujah Chorus. This example contains a brief dominant prolongation of one bar duration followed by a static coda of 7 bars involving 8 repeats of the I [ IV ] I pattern.
The IV to I chord succession (repeated 8 times in this example) is sometimes referred to as a plagal or amen cadence. However, this is not in reality a cadence, merely the result of the I [IV] I static harmony prolonging the cadential tonic chord. The only true cadence in this example is in the movement from the last chord of the brief dominant prolongation in bar 87 to the first chord of the static coda starting in bar 88. A true plagal cadence only occurs when the syntactic V - I is replaced by IV - I. See chapter 6.
To avoid any confusion it should be made clear that there is no relationship between a static coda and a formal coda. A static coda is a syntactic element and performs a syntactic function in a musical phrase. The only purpose of the expression static coda is to explain how the harmony functions in relation to the musical phrase. It can exist at the end of any phrase in a piece of music not necessarily at the end of a section. A formal coda may contain whole syntactic phrases.