Modal Idioms and Their Rhetorical Associations in Rachmaninoff’s Works

1. Introduction by Way of an IntroductionExample 1. Symphony no. 3, op. 44, i, measures 1-10(click to enlarge and listen)Example 2. Aleko, Introduction, measures 1-10(click to enlarge and listen)Example 3a. Symphony no. 3, i, measures 314-18(click to enlarge and listen)Example 3b. Aleko, Finale, reh. 20(click to enlarge and listen)[1.1] Neo-modalism is an integral part of Rachmaninoff's harmonic language. Passages that involve the familiar, named diatonic modes or the almost-as-familiar, named equal-interval modes (whole-tone, octatonic, hexatonic) appear in prominent locations in his works. Modal passages are often texturally, rhythmically, or formally distinct from surrounding passages, and Rachmaninoff's treatment of modal passages is remarkably consistent across his oeuvre. For example, the first movement of the Third Symphony, op. 44, a work from the 1930s, begins with a motto theme (Example 1) whose phrygian modalism is strongly reminiscent of the opening measures in the opera Aleko, a work composed over forty years earlier (1892; Example 2).(1) In both examples, phrygian upper and lower neighbor figures (lowered and lowered ) revolve axially around the tonic, quietly setting the stage.(2) In both examples, the initial phrygian passage is five measures long and is set apart from what follows by silence. In both, noisier, dissonant chromaticism follows in measure 6 as the action gets underway. In both, prompts further motion in the flat direction in the form of (measure 8 in both instances)-a hint of locrian, perhaps, which in both cases is incorporated into some kind of pre-dominant harmonic function. After this, the two works diverge, but they converge again at the conclusion: the first movement of the symphony ends, as does the opera, with a codetta that restates the opening material in phrygian major-phrygian with raised (Example 3a and Example 3b).(3)[1.2] In five decades of composing, Rachmaninoff's style changed significantly and his technique developed substantially.(4) Yet the passages in Examples 1 and 2 seem to have been composed to the same basic template. A closer look at how that template is realized in Example 1 will lay groundwork for the rest of this article. The symphony's introduction has three rhythmically distinct stages. Stage 1, the explicitly phrygian stage, is static and metrically uncertain. Stage 2 is, by contrast, intense. It is louder. It is faster. Instrumental polyphony replaces monophonic quasi-chant. Metric uncertainty becomes syncopation. Phrygian modalism begets phrygian-derived chromaticism as the roles of pitch-classes Band Gare transformed: neighbor notes become chord members. Each of the three accented chords above the ascending bass in measures 6-8 contains B(against internal pedal-point A), and two of them contain G, too. Specific pitch-class links thus connect stage 2 to the opening motto, but increasing dissonance, intervallic complexity, and metric clarity propel a functional harmonic progression that supports the pitch center, A.[1.3] The phrygian material in stage 1 seems like a kind of stock pattern, expressively rich but syntactically rather neutral. To borrow a term from Russian folk music, it is more popevka than progression: a short, repetitive, circular melodic idea, not in itself conducive to directed tonal motion.(5) But it turns out to have genuine motivic potential in stage 2, and as that potential comes to the surface in measures 6-9, phrygian modalism recedes. Stage 3, which is metrically quite solid, responds to stage 2 by echoing the V-i resolution twice-the first time substituting a chromatic chord (pseudo-vi) for the dominant, the second time subsiding into the tonic via the more neutral III6 (an aeolian substitute for V) and thereby reestablishing something of the motto's modal flavor for the subsequent exposition of the modally tinged main theme. …