Lament bass

Chromatic fourth: lament bass bassline in Dm (D-C♯-C(♮)-B-B♭-A) Playⓘ.

In music, the lament bass is a ground bass, built from a descending perfect fourth from tonic to dominant, with each step harmonized.[1] The diatonic version is the upper tetrachord from the natural minor scale,[2] known as the Phrygian tetrachord, while the chromatic version, the chromatic fourth, has all semitones filled in. It is often used in music to denote tragedy or sorrow.[3]

However, "A common misperception exists that the 'lament bass' of Venetian opera became so prevalent that it immediately swept away all other possible affective associations with this bass pattern...To cite but one example, Peter Holman, writing about Henry Purcell, once characterized the minor tetrachord as 'the descending ground that was associated with love in seventeenth-century opera'."[4]

Lament bass[1] without chromatic semitones: descending tetrachord in a minor: scale degree 8-♭scale degree 7-♭scale degree 6- scale degree 5 (a-g-f-e). Play without harmonizationⓘ and Play with harmonizationⓘ followed by Phrygian cadence.[1]
\new StaffGroup << \new Staff \with { \magnifyStaff #6/7 } \relative c'' { \time 3/4 \key c \minor \tempo "Largo" << \new Voice = "first" \relative c'' { \voiceOne <c g>8 <g' es>4 <es c>4 <c g>8 | <g' d>8 <g d>4 <d bes> <d bes>8 | <f c>8 <f c>4 <as as,> <f c>8 | <d b>8 <g b,>4 } \new Voice = "second" \relative c'' { \voiceTwo g2.:8 g2.:8 f:8 g:8 \bar"" } >> } \new Staff \with { \magnifyStaff #6/7 } \relative c' { \clef "bass" \key c \minor c2.:8 b4:8 bes2:8 a4:8 as2:8 g8 g, g2:8^\markup{\italic etc.} } >>
Lament bass from Vivaldi's motet "O qui coeli terraeque serenitas" RV 631, Aria No. 2[5]
Tonally coherent harmonization from Beethoven's C-Minor Variations.[6] (1806) Playⓘ
Passacaglia ground bass in Bach's Crucifixus from the Mass in B minor, based on the first choral movement of his 1714 cantata Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, BWV 12[7] Playⓘ
Dido's Lament chromatic fourth ground bass, measures 1–6[8] Playⓘ
  1. ^ a b c Brover-Lubovsky, Bella (2008). Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi, p.151-52. ISBN 978-0-253-35129-6.
  2. ^ Ellis, Mark R. (2010). A Chord in Time: The Evolution of the Augmented Sixth from Monteverdi to Mahler, p.200. ISBN 978-0-7546-6385-0.
  3. ^ Brover-Lubovsky (2008), p.153. "In the eighteenth century...the lament bass almost automatically invoked somber affection, gravity, and oppressiveness."
  4. ^ Thompson, Shirley (2010). New Perspectives on Marc-Antoine Charpentier, p.64. ISBN 978-0-7546-6579-3.
  5. ^ Williams, Peter (1998). The Chromatic Fourth: During Four Centuries of Music, p.69. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816563-3.
  6. ^ Frisch, Walter (1996). Schubert: critical and analytical studies, p.10. ISBN 978-0-8032-6892-0.
  7. ^ Blatter, Alfred (2007).Revisiting music theory, p.240. ISBN 978-0-415-97440-0.
  8. ^ Kapilow, Robert (2008). All You Have to Do Is Listen, p. 151. ISBN 978-0-470-38544-9.