Locrian mode

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Locrian on C

The Locrian mode is a musical mode or diatonic scale. Although the term occurs in several classical authors on music theory, including Cleonides (as an octave species) and Athenaeus (as an obsolete harmonia), there is no warrant for the modern usage of Locrian as equivalent to Glarean's Hyperaeolian mode, in either classical, Renaissance, or later phases of modal theory through the 18th century, or modern scholarship on ancient Greek musical theory and practice.[1] The name first came to be applied to modal chant theory in the 19th century, when it was used to describe the mode newly numbered as mode 11, with final on B, ambitus from that note to the octave above, and with semitones therefore between the first and second, and fourth and fifth degrees. Its reciting tone (or tenor) is G, its mediant, D, and it has two participants, E and F.[2]

In modern practice, the Locrian may be considered to be a minor scale with the second and fifth scale degrees lowered a semi-tone. The Locrian mode may also be considered to be a scale beginning on the seventh scale degree of any Ionian, or major scale. The Locrian mode has the formula 1, ♭2, ♭3, 4, ♭5, ♭6, ♭7. Its tonic chord is a diminished triad (Bdim in the Locrian mode of the diatonic scale corresponding to C major).

Some examples:

  • The B Locrian mode starts on B and contains the same notes as the C Major scale. (B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B)
  • The E Locrian mode starts on E and contains the same notes as the F Major scale. (E, F, G, A, B♭, C, D, E)
  • The G Locrian mode starts on G and contains the same notes as the A♭ Major scale. (G, A♭, B♭, C, D♭, E♭, F, G)
  • The F♯ Locrian mode starts on F♯ and contains the same notes as the G Major scale. (F♯, G, A, B, C, D, E, F♯ )

Locrian on B

Contents

[edit] Overview

The Locrian mode is the only modern diatonic mode in which the tonic chord is a diminished chord, resulting in a tonic chord that is considered dissonant. For example, the tonic chord of B Locrian is made from the notes B, D, F. The interval between the tonic (B) and the dominant (F) is a diminished fifth or tritone.

In more recent musical pieces, the dissonance or musical imbalance created by the Locrian scale and chord have come back into favour (especially in Jazz) in order to create a sense of large tension.

A fascinating Locrian mode passage from the Romantic Era is the first ten measures of Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1, where the initial phrase of the main theme is built entirely upon the D Locrian mode (D E♭ F G A♭ B♭ C D), which has the same notes as the E-flat major scale.[original research?]

Classical composers of the 20th century have occasionally used the Locrian mode, although usually with somewhat complex chords that avoid baldly stating the tonic triad. For example, Scriabin's 5th Piano Sonata, op. 53, often questionably referred to as being in F-sharp major, actually both begins and ends in the Locrian mode on D♯. It is actually partly the same passage of music, used as both the start of the introduction and the end of the coda. The closing D♯-Locrian passage is immediately preceded by a short passage, in the same Locrian mode enharmonically notated in E♭, which in turn is arrived at via very brief transitions through several other modes, all based on E♭.

There are brief passages in works by Rachmaninov (Prelude in B minor, op. 32, no. 10), Hindemith (Ludus Tonalis), and Sibelius (Symphony no. 4 in A minor, op. 63) that have been, or may be, regarded as in the Locrian mode.[3] Benjamin Britten uses the Locrian mode substantially throughout his opera Death in Venice, where it is used to evoke the Byzantine and atmospheric character of Venice.[original research?] But, because it is difficult to write pure Locrian-mode passages that are unambiguously in the Locrian mode, the actual mode of these passages may be more open to interpretation in a different mode than is usual for passages in other modes that more closely resemble a major or minor scale.

The name "Locrian" is taken from music theory of ancient Greece. However, what is now called the Locrian mode was what the Greeks called the Diatonic Mixolydian tonos. The Greeks used the term "Locrian" as an alternative name for their "Hypodorian", or "Common" tonos, with a scale running from mese to nete hyperbolaion, which in its diatonic genus corresponds to the modern Aeolian mode.[4] In his reform of modal theory in the Dodecachordon (1547), Heinrich Glarean named this division of the octave "Hyperaeolian" and printed some musical examples (a three-part polyphonic example specially commissioned from his friend Sixtus Dietrich, and the Christe from a mass by Pierre de La Rue), though he did not accept Hyperaeolian as one of his twelve modes.[5] The usage of the term "Locrian" as equivalent to Glarean's Hyperaeolian or the ancient Greek (diatonic) Mixolydian, however, has no authority before the 19th century.[6]

[edit] Examples
Locrian mode example.
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[edit] References

  1. ^ Harold S. Powers, "Locrian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001); David Hiley, "Mode", The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) ISBN 978-0-19866212-9 OCLC 59376677.
  2. ^ W[illiam] S[myth] Rockstro, "Locrian Mode", A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (A.D. 1450–1880), by Eminent Writers, English and Foreign, vol. 2, edited by George Grove, D. C. L. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1880): 158.
  3. ^ Vincent Persichetti, Twentieth Century Harmony (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1961): 42.
  4. ^ Thomas J. Mathiesen, "Greece, §1: Ancient; 6: Music Theory". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001.[page needed]
  5. ^ Harold S. Powers, "Hyperaeolian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001.
  6. ^ Harold S. Powers, "Locrian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001.
  7. ^ McFarland, Al. "Locrian mode". Guitar Nut. http://guitar-nut.com/mode_locrian.php. Retrieved 2009-26-03. [unreliable source?]
  8. ^ Eduardo Larín,. 2005. "'Waves' in Debussy's Jeux". Ex Tempore 12, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2005)].

[edit] Further reading

  • Bárdos, Lajos. 1976. "Egy 'szomorú' hangnem: Kodály zenéje és a lokrikum". Magyar zene: Zenetudományi folyóirat 17, no. 4 (December): 339–87.
  • Nichols, Roger, and Richard Langham Smith. 1989. Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande. Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521314466
  • Rahn, Jay. 1978. "Constructs for Modality, ca. 1300–1550". Canadian Association of University Schools of Music Journal / Association Canadienne des Écoles Universitaires de Musique Journal, 8, no. 2 (Fall): 5–39.
  • Rowold, Helge. 1999. "'To achieve perfect clarity of expression, that is my aim': Zum Verhältnis von Tradition und Neuerung in Benjamin Brittens War Requiem". Die Musikforschung 52, no. 2 (April-June): 212–19.
  • Smith, Richard Langham. 1992. "Pelléas et Mélisande". The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, 4 vols, edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Press; New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music. ISBN 0333485521 (UK) ISBN 0935859926 (US)

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Modes in Western Music
Gregorian
Other
Ionian · Hypoionian · Aeolian · Hypoaeolian · Locrian · Hypolocrian
Diatonic scale
Minor scale
Melodic minor (I) · Dorian ♭2 (II) · Lydian Augmented (III) · Lydian Dominant (IV) · Mixolydian ♭13 (V) · Locrian ♮2 (VI) · Altered (VII)
See also: Properties of musical modes
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