Picardy third

Picardy third ending an Aeolian (natural minor) progression

A Picardy third, (/ˈpɪkərdi/; French: tierce picarde) also known as a Picardy cadence or Tierce de Picardie, is a major chord of the tonic at the end of a musical section that is either modal or in a minor key. This is achieved by raising the third of the expected minor triad by a semitone to create a major triad, as a form of resolution.[1]

For example, instead of a cadence ending on an A minor chord containing the notes A, C, and E, a Picardy third ending would consist of an A major chord containing the notes A, C♯, and E. The minor third between the A and C of the A minor chord has become a major third in the Picardy third chord.[2]

Schütz "Heu mihi, Domine" from Cantiones Sacrae, 1625
Schütz "Heu mihi, Domine" from Cantiones Sacrae, 1625

Philosopher Peter Kivy writes:

Even in instrumental music, the picardy third retains its expressive quality: it is the "happy third". ... Since at least the beginning of the seventeenth century, it is no longer enough to describe it as a resolution to the more consonant triad; it is a resolution to the happier triad as well. ... The picardy third is absolute music's happy ending. Furthermore, I hypothesize that in gaining this expressive property of happiness or contentment, the picardy third augmented its power as the perfect, most stable cadential chord, being both the most emotionally consonant chord, so to speak, as well as the most musically consonant.[3]

According to Deryck Cooke, "Western composers, expressing the 'rightness' of happiness by means of a major third, expressed the 'wrongness' of grief by means of the minor third, and for centuries, pieces in a minor key had to have a 'happy ending' – a final major chord (the 'tierce de Picardie') or a bare fifth."[4]

As a harmonic device, the Picardy third originated in Western music in the Renaissance era.

  1. ^ Percy Scholes (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Music: Self-indexed and with a Pronouncing Glossary and Over 1,100 Portraits and Pictures, ninth edition, completely revised and reset and with many additions to text and illustrations (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 1027–28.
  2. ^ "How Picard was the "Picardy Third"?". ProQuest. Retrieved 2 January 2021.
  3. ^ Peter Kivy, Osmin's Rage: Philosophical Reflections on Opera, Drama, and Text, with a New Final Chapter (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 289. ISBN 978-0-8014-8589-3.
  4. ^ Deryck Cooke, The Language of Music (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 57.