Enharmonic Position Finding and the Resolution of Seventh Chords in Chromatic Music

Abstract

Tonal harmonic theory as inherited from nineteenth-century sources is limited in its ability to explain irregular resolutions of seventh chords because it requires that all harmonies be understood in relation to a particular key. Approaching these resolutions instead based on voice-leading transformations in which characteristic dissonances in seventh chords (i.e., the tritone, augmented sixth, and diminished seventh) progress to consonant intervals contained in a major or minor triad makes it possible to categorize and compare both regular and irregular seventh-chord resolutions. The transformations entail locating all possible positions for these successions of interval classes in progressions from seventh chords to triads, often involving enharmonic reinterpretation. The RES function introduced in this study offers a systematic means of accounting for the plausible resolutions of seventh chords and is useful in the analysis of chromatic music, as illustrated in examples from the works of nineteenth-century composers, including complete structures by César Franck and Richard Strauss.

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