L5 - Coda
Lesson Objectives:
To understand what is meant by augmentation of a melody
To understand what an octatonic scale is
To understand what polytonal and sus chords are
Analysis of reprise of intro at the end
Coda
The Story: Just before the dramatic end of the song, Elphaba sings, at a slower tempo, getting louder and higher all the time and holding the final note for 12 beats ‘and nobody in all of Oz, no wizard that there ever was is gonna bring me down’. As this reaches the climax, Glinda sings passionately ‘I hope you’re happy now’ as Elphaba flies off on her broomstick and the ensemble enter, crying out ‘look at her, she’s wicked, get her’. Elphaba repeats bring me down’ and on the final orchestral D the lights blackout for the end
The coda is the final section. Coda literally means ‘tail’ in Italian and is a passage of music that brings a piece to an end.
It begins with another interrupted cadence in D major from chord V (A major) to chord VI (B minor) and is marked Maestoso (majestic and stately)
Augmentation
In ‘Defying Gravity’ the coda combines a number of ideas.
Elphaba sings an augmented version of the melody that starts the chorus.
Augmentation is when a melody or motif, which has been heard before, is now heard with longer note values so it sounds slower. It continues to feature the perfect 5th.
Octatonic Scale
The ensemble sing ‘look at her! She’s wicked! Get her!’
This melody comes from the opening number of the show ‘No One Mourns the Wicked’ and is the melody from these words.
The obsession with perfect 5ths continues as the chorus sings this melody in 5ths.
The soprano part to the words ‘So we’ve got to bring her’ ascends using the notes of the octatonic scale, which is an eight note scale built from alternating tones (T) and semitones (ST)
Polytonal Chords
Accompanying the words ‘to bring her’ are a series of polytonal chords.
This is very like the bitonal passage in the bridge.
Here the chords are made from two keys at the same time.
On the word ‘to’ we hear an F major chord (C F A) underneath a C major chord (G C E).
On ‘bring’ we hear a Eb major chord underneath a Bb major chord .
On ‘her’ we hear a Db major chord underneath a C major chord.
The first 2 chords (F to C) are a perfect 5th apart. The last 2 chords (C to Db) are a semitone apart and create a strong dissonance.
Sus Chords
When looking at ‘Music for a While’ we saw how the chords were nearly all triads in either root position or 1st inversion. In ‘Defying Gravity’ the harmony is more complex and includes a number of sus chords.
Sus stands for suspension and like the melodic suspensions in ‘Music for a While’ it is a chord that includes a dissonant note—a note that ‘doesn’t fit’ with the rest of the chord.
The 3rd of the chord (the note in the middle that tells us the tonality of the chord) is replaced by either the 2nd note of the scale or the 4th note in the scale.
Review Questions:
1) How is an octatonic scale formed and when do we hear it sung?
2) What happens to the note values when a melody is augmented? Where does this happen?
3) What does polytonal mean?
4) What do we mean by a sus chord? What are the notes in a Csus2 chord and a Gsus4 chord?