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In 1937–38, Igor V. Sposobin and three co-authors at the Moscow Conservatory published Uchebnik garmonii [Harmony Textbook]. This was the first officially approved harmony textbook in the USSR, which came to be adopted as “the basic textbook for courses on harmony in the music schools of the Soviet Union” (Vladimir Protopopov, 1960). Characterized by its promulgation of the “scientifically based” theory of harmonic functions, this book was destined to be read by many more musicians in a foreign land. In 1955–56, Boris A. Arapov decreed at meetings held at the Central Conservatory of Music in China that the problem posed by the ethnicization of harmony should be solved by combining musical elements that are considered ethnically distinct with functional harmony. Wu Zuqiang, who had studied at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1950s before he headed the Central Conservatory in the 1980s, published a chapter from Uchebnik garmonii already in 1955. The first Chinese translation of the whole book by Zhu Shimin was then published in 1957–58. The book soon attained canonic status in China and has been used in virtually all Chinese music institutions up to the present day. It is listed in the entrance examination syllabi of selected conservatories and reputable music theorists have published model answers to the exercises it contains. This article investigates how the Chinese reception of Uchebnik garmonii diverges from the sources that had inspired Sposobin and his colleagues to compose it in the first place, and throws light on the far-reaching impacts and ramifications of Uchebnik garmonii in China. // 1937–38 publizierte Igor V. Sposobin gemeinsam mit drei Ko-Autoren Uchebnik garmonii [Lehrbuch der Harmonik] am Moskauer Konservatorium. Diese erste offiziell anerkannte Harmonielehre der UdSSR wurde zum “grundlegenden Lehrbuch für Harmonielehrekurse an Musikausbildungsstätten der Sowjetunion” (Vladimir Protopopov, 1960). Charakterisiert durch seine Verbreitung einer als “wissenschaftlich fundiert” erachteten Funktionstheorie, sollte das Buch noch von vielen weiteren Musiker*innen in einem anderen Land gelesen werden: Boris A. Arapov erklärte 1955–56 bei einer Konferenz am Zentralkonservatorium Beijing, dass das Problem einer “Ethnisierung” von Harmonik gelöst werden solle, indem musikalische Elemente, die als ethnisch different aufgefasst werden, mit Funktionsharmonik kombiniert werden. Wu Zuqiang, der in den 1950er Jahren am Moskauer Konservatorium studierte und in den 1980er Jahren dann Präsident des Beijinger Zentralkonservatoriums wurde, legte bereits 1955 die Übersetzung eines Kapitels aus Uchebnik garmonii vor, worauf 1957–58 dann die erste vollständige Übersetzung von Zhu Shimin folgte. Das Lehrbuch erhielt rasch einen kanonischen Status in China und ist in nahezu allen Musikinstitutionen des Landes bis zum heutigen Tag in Verwendung. Es ist in den Anforderungen zur Zulassungsprüfung und den Lehrplänen einiger Konservatorien angeführt, und angesehene Musiktheoretiker haben Modelllösungen zu den Übungen des Buchs veröffentlicht. Dieser Beitrag untersucht wie die chinesische Rezeption von Uchebnik garmonii sich von den Quellen entfernte, die Sposobin und seine Kollegen ursprünglich motiviert hatten, das Buch zu verfassen. Dadurch wird deutlich, welche weitreichenden und unvorhersehbaren Auswirkungen Uchebnik garmonii in China mit sich brachte.

Day-O'Connell (2002, The rise of 6 in the nineteenth century. Music Theory Spectrum, 24(1), 35-67; 2007, Pentatonicism from the eighteenth century to Debussy. Rochester, NY: University Rochester Press; 2008, Pentatonic. In D. Root, (Ed.), Grove music online. Retrieved on 10 December, 2016.) has suggested that the use of the sixth scale degree in Western classical music changed notably over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. Specifically, he proposed an increasing use of a 'plagal leading-tone' cadence involving the tonic ( 1) preceded by the submediant pitch ( 6). Day-O'Connell also proposed that scale degree 6 exhibits an increasingly freer range of tendencies over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries. In this study, several hypotheses arising from Day-O'Connell's theory are tested using two musical corpora entailing over 16,000 musical passages. Results are consistent with Day-O'Connell's claims that 6 occurs more frequently in nineteenth century music, and that motions departing from 6 exhibit greater freedom. However, evidence for the suggestion that there is an increasing use of plagal leading-tone cadences is equivocal. Furthermore, the empirical results suggest that European folk music is less pentatonic than commonly supposed and that the origin of the plagal leading-tone cadence is not likely to originate in Western continental European folksongs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Die farbige Jazz-Harmonik George Gershwins beruht auf einem charakteristischen Akkordrepertoire. Anhand seiner Oper Porgy and Bess soll dieses Repertoire systematisch dargestellt und für die Unterrichtspraxis fruchtbar gemacht werden.

This analysis compares and contrasts two of Claude Debussy's pentatonic preludes, La fille aux cheveux de lin and Bruyères. It argues that these works are remarkably similar in terms of form and harmonic language, but quite distinct in terms of their cadential structure and handling of foreign notes, which often serve as catalysts. Particular attention is paid to a nexus passage in Bruyères that sheds further light on Debussy's idiosyncratic and nuanced harmonic praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Chinese music, pentatonic collection is central in constituting all the harmonic and melodic elements; most of the traditional Chinese musicians particularly emphasize the importance of the smoothness between pentatonic collections when one collection modulates to another collection, articulating the roles of the pentatonic common tones. On the contrary, in post-tonal Chinese music the central features of the pentatonic modulations tend to reflect a larger number of semitonal relationships with a lesser number of common tones. This paper offers an analytical account of the transformations between pentatonic collections that arise in post-tonal Chinese music by adopting the methodology of the Tonnetz, in particular, Dual Interval Space (DIS), to elaborate and reexamine pentatonicism by focusing on the transformations between pentatonic elements, especially semitonal motion and common tones. In the essay, various pentatonic passages will be analyzed by means of DIS for highlighting the transformation of the collections. It will be shown that the pentatonic collections that are in semitonal, third, and augmented fourth relationships exhibit the maximum number of semitonal shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]