Petrushka chord

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Petrushka chord

Component intervals from root

diminished seventh

minor sixth

diminished fifth

minor third

diminished third

root

The Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonic device used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka and in later music. The very dissonant chord is most associated with the emotions of shock or horror^{[citation needed]}.

Contents 1 Structure 2 Petrushka 3 Other uses 4 See also 5 Sources

[edit] Structure

The Petrushka chord is not an individual chord^{[citation needed]}, but rather a succession of intervals. It is defined as two simultaneous major triad arpeggios separated by a tritone. The lower voice is under first inversion. In Petrushka Stravinsky used C Major on top of F-sharp Major (here presented in first inversion):

Listen to this segment (MIDI file)

The device uses tones that, together, make up most of the octatonic scale. The chords may be considered to contradict each other because of the tritone relationship: "Any tendency for a tonality to emerge may be avoided by introducing a note three whole tones distant from the key note of that tonality" ^[1].

[edit] Petrushka

Stravinsky used the chord repeatedly throughout the ballet Petrushka to represent the puppet and the puppet's mocking of the crowd at the Shrovetide Fair.

[edit] Other uses

Franz Liszt used chords a tritone apart in his Malediction Concerto (Walser 1998, p.215).

Maurice Ravel uses this chord in his piano work Jeux D'eau to create flourishing, water-like sounds that characterize the piece. In his article "Ravel's 'Russian' Period: Octatonicism in His Early Works, 1893-1908", Stephen Baur notes that Jeux d'eau was composed in 1901, ten years before Stravinsky composed Petrushka (1911), suggesting that Stravinsky may have learned the trick from Ravel. Stravinsky heard Jeux d'eau and several other works by Ravel no later then 1907 at the "Evenings for Contemporary Music" program. (See Journal of the American Musicological Society 52 (1999), 531-592.

Leonard Bernstein ends the popular musical West Side Story with a C Major chord in the upper voices, and gives the basses an F#, which could be seen to imply the Petrushka chord.

John Williams uses it in various parts of his score for the Star Wars Trilogy, an example being the frequent use of major triads in the brass in chromatic intervals of a minor third (two minor thirds forming a tritone) such as G major and D flat major.

[edit] See also

• Mystic chord
• Tristan chord
• Elektra chord

[edit] Sources

• Walser, Robert (1998). Keeping Time : Readings in Jazz History. ISBN 0-19-509173-6.

v • d • e Chords
By Type	Triad	Major · Minor · Augmented · Diminished · Suspended
	Seventh	Major · Minor · Dominant · Diminished · Half-diminished · Minor-major · Augmented major · Augmented minor
	Extended	Ninth · Eleventh · Thirteenth
	Other	Sixth · Augmented sixth · Altered · Added tone · Polychord · Quartal and quintal · Tone cluster · Power
By Function	Diatonic	Tonic · Dominant · Subdominant · Submediant
	Altered	Borrowed · Neapolitan chord · Secondary dominant
With Names		Elektra chord · Hendrix chord · Mystic chord · Petrushka chord · Tristan chord · So What chord