A note in Rachmaninoff

[Anders Hedelin]

I remember a phrase in contemporary music during the 80's I think it was when an amazingly dissonant piece would suddenly end with some soothing major and minor triads. The relief was palpable in the audience who were convinced that they had just heard something quite profound and wonderful.

Sounds like Hindemith, but could be someone else at the time.

[John Ruggero]

Not Hindemith's famous ending chords. This was usually some chaotic, atonal piece of a type favored in academic circles here in the US that ended with a completely consonant section, justified by a programmatic idea; from darkness to light sort of thing. I thought it was an attempt to placate the audience, which it seemed to. In any case, the consonant section stood out like sore thumb, along the lines of what you were mentioning.

[Ander]

Neither! I've listened to it several times, and I hear B, G#, D#—in other words, a G#m/D# chord.

[John Ruggero]

I hear the F dropping a half step to F , not rising to a G .

Thanks again to everyone for helping and for your comments.

I have now posted actual response to the Henle blog under Texts and Blogs here at Notatio at

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