A
term that is theoretically applicable to any mode or scale using eight
different pitches to the octave, but which has found wide acceptance (since its
adoption in Berger, 1963–4) as a designation for the scale (or pitch class
collection) generated by alternating whole tones and semitones. A scalar order
of the collection can begin with the semitone (the form termed ‘Model A’ by van
den Toorn; e.g. C–C
–D–E–F–G–A–A) or the tone (‘Model B’; e.g. C–D–D–F–F–G–A–B). Only three distinct transpositions are
possible: the forms given above can be transposed to begin on C and D, but any further
transpositions will replicate one of those three forms in its pitch class
content. The collection is therefore a ‘mode of limited transposition’ under
Messiaen's definition (1944).
The
octatonic differs from other collections based on symmetrical octave
partitioning (such as the whole-tone scale) in that it accommodates both major
and minor triads (as well as diminished triads and dominant, minor or
half-diminished 7ths) on its degrees a minor 3rd apart (i.e. on C, D, F and A in the ‘Model A’ scale given above).
Referentially octatonic passages dating from the mid-19th century, notably in
the music of Liszt, tend to involve triadic root progressions by the minor 3rd,
while some later examples of the collection (either partial or complete) result
from the actual superimposition of minor 3rd- or tritone-related triads or 7th
chords (the celebrated bell chord that opens Act 1 scene ii of Musorgsky's Boris
Godunov is a subset of the octatonic). The scalar form of the collection
was noted by Rimsky-Korsakov (who dubbed it the ‘tone–semitone’ scale – see
Taruskin), and numerous 20th-century composers subsequently explored its
non-triadic partitionings, notably Stravinsky and Bartók (whose piano piece
‘Diminished Fifth’ from Mikrokosmos divides the collection into two
minor tetrachords a tritone apart). As well as by Messiaen (who classified it
as his ‘Mode 2’), the scale was used extensively by Pijper in the Netherlands,
where it became known as the ‘Pijper scale’. From the 1980s onwards
octatonicism received considerable attention in the literature of music
analysis: while still most frequently discussed with reference to the music of
Stravinsky, it has been explored in studies of Debussy, Ravel, Skryabin and
Webern among others.
O. Messiaen: Technique de mon langage musical (Paris, 1944; Eng. trans., 1956)
A. Berger: ‘Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky’, PNM, ii (1963–4), 11–42
P.C. van den Toorn: The Music of Igor Stravinsky (New Haven, CT, 1983)
R. Taruskin: ‘Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; or, Stravinsky's “Angle”’, JAMS, xxxviii (1985), 72–142; rev. repr. in Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions (Berkeley, 1996)
T. Kabisch: ‘Oktatonik, Tonalität und Form in der Musik Maurice Ravels’, Musiktheorie, v (1990), 117–36
R. Cohn: ‘Bartók's Octatonic Strategies: a Motivic Approach’, JAMS, xliv (1991), 262–300
A. Forte: ‘Debussy and the Octatonic’, MAn, x (1991), 125–69
J.-M. Boulay: ‘Octatonicism and Chromatic Harmony’, Canadian University Music Review, xvii (1996), 40–56
A. Forte: ‘The Golden Thread: Octatonic Music in Anton Webern's Early Songs’, Webern Studies, ed. K. Bailey (Cambridge, 1996), 74–110
Cheong Wai-Ling: ‘Scriabin's Octatonic Sonata’, JRMA, cxxi (1996), 206–28
CHARLES WILSON