Chromatic

(from Gk. chrōmatikos: ‘coloured’).

Based on an octave of 12 semitones, as opposed to a seven-note Diatonic scale. A chromatic Scale consists of an ascending or descending line that advances by semitones. An instrument is said to be chromatic if throughout the whole or a substantial part of its compass it can produce all the semitones. An interval is said to be chromatic if it is not part of a diatonic scale (e.g. F–F, B–E).

In melodic and harmonic analysis the term ‘chromatic’ is generally applied to notes marked with accidentals foreign to the scale of the key in which the passage is written. But a note that is chromatic with reference to a particular key may cease to be chromatic if a suitable modulation takes place at the same time. Thus if one considers ex.1 as representing in its entirety a move from I to V in C major, then there are points of chromaticism throughout, on the weak beat of each bar; but if the incidental modulations to D minor, E minor, F major and G major are taken into particular account, then none of the notes in the passage is actually chromatic.

The diatonic–chromatic opposition is roughly analogous to the contrast between musica recta and Musica ficta in medieval and early Renaissance polyphonic theory; unlike the later diatonic system, however, musica recta generally included B in addition to the seven ‘uninflected’ notes from A to G. Throughout this period notes were altered by semitone in performance, mainly to avoid vertical or melodic dissonances and to create leading-note relationships at cadences. This practice led some 20th-century commentators to speak of a 16th-century ‘secret chromatic art’ (Lowinsky, 1946, 1972; but see Bent). True chromaticism had its first flowering in the secular music of the second half of the 16th century, above all in the Italian madrigal (Rore, Marenzio and Gesualdo), where it went hand in hand with expressive, affective text-setting. This development was transported to England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and also had a profound influence on secular monody and the beginnings of opera in Italy around the turn of the 17th century.

In the Baroque era the use of chromaticism was closely linked with the Doctrine of the Affections (see Affects, theory of the), as well as with abstract musical composition (conceived in particular for the keyboard), rather than with vocal music. Ricercares (and similar contrapuntal forms) with chromatic subjects are common in the works of early Baroque keyboard composers, such as Sweelinck and John Bull. In the 18th century the acceptance of Equal temperament made all chromatic intervals equivalent to some diatonic interval (e.g. C–D = C–E) and the use of such Enharmonic relationships made for an expansion of harmonic possibilities. These were fully realized in the music of Bach throughout his career, from the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue to the six-part ricercare from the Musical Offering. In the Classical period there seem to have been simultaneous yet relatively independent developments in diatonicism (J.C. Bach, Haydn) and chromaticism (C.P.E. Bach, Mozart).

The flourishing of chromaticism belongs to the 19th century. The work of Schubert and Chopin takes enharmonic change to its limits. In the mid-19th century the seminal work in the development of a totally chromatic language is Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, in which the implications of harmonic ambiguity in the opening bars of the Prelude (especially in the ‘Tristan’ chord itself) are spelt out in the course of the opera. For Wagner, however, chromaticism was still partly tied to the notion of ‘affections’: he used it where it seemed necessary for the expression of the text, mood or emotion. In a work such as Parsifal strict diatonicism is made to co-exist with a chromaticism even more strongly inflected than in Tristan; see especially the Prelude to Act 3. After Wagner chromaticism developed more along abstract lines, from the impressionism of Debussy to the ‘free’ atonality of Schoenberg and his contemporaries after 1907. In Twelve-note composition, in which all the notes of the chromatic octave are of equal weight, the significance of chromaticism as an extension of the diatonic system no longer exists.

For a definition of ‘chromatic’ as used in ancient Greek music theory, see Tetrachord.

See also Harmony.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T. Kroyer: Die Anfänge der Chromatik im italienischen Madrigal (Leipzig, 1902/R)

E. Lowinsky: Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet (New York, 1946/R)

K. Levy: ‘Costeley's Chromatic Chanson’, AnnM, iii (1955), 213–63

W.J. Mitchell: ‘The Study of Chromaticism’, JMT, vi (1962), 2–31

E. Lowinsky: ‘Secret Chromatic Art Re-Examined’, Perspectives in Musicology, ed. B.S. Brook, E.O.D. Downes and S. van Solkema (New York, 1972), 91–135

J. Haar: ‘False Relations and Chromaticism in Sixteenth-Century Music’, JAMS, xxx (1977), 391–418

K. Berger: Theories of Chromatic and Enharmonic Music in Late Sixteenth Century Italy (Ann Arbor, 1980)

A. Forte: ‘Generative Chromaticism in Mozart's Music’, MQ, lxvi (1980), 459–83

M. Bent: ‘Diatonic ficta’, EMH, iv (1984), 1–48

K.-S. Teo: Chromaticism in the English Madrigal (New York, 1989)

H. Boatwright: Chromaticism (Fayetteville, AR, 1994)

GEORGE DYSON/WILLIAM DRABKIN/R