In music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, the Psalms chord is "the famous opening chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

" of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

's Symphony of Psalms

Symphony of Psalms

The Symphony of Psalms by Igor Stravinsky was written in 1930 and was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This piece is a three-movement choral symphony and was composed during Stravinsky's neoclassical period. The symphony derives...

, a "barking E minor

Minor chord

In music theory, a minor chord is a chord having a root, a minor third, and a perfect fifth.When a chord has these three notes alone, it is called a minor triad....

 triad

Triad (music)

In music and music theory, a triad is a three-note chord that can be stacked in thirds. Its members, when actually stacked in thirds, from lowest pitched tone to highest, are called:* the Root...

 - characteristically spaced

Voicing (music)

In music composition and arranging, a voicing is the instrumentation and vertical spacing and ordering of the pitches in a chord...

", "like no E-minor triad that was ever known before". It is common to both the octatonic scale

Octatonic scale

An octatonic scale is any eight-note musical scale. Among the most famous of these is a scale in which the notes ascend in alternating intervals of a whole step and a half step, creating a symmetric scale...

 and the Phrygian scale on E, and the contrasting sections of the first movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

 based on the scales are linked by statements of the Psalms chord.

See also

• Elektra chord
  Elektra chord
  The Elektra chord is a "complexly dissonant signature-chord" and motivic elaboration used by composer Richard Strauss to represent the title character of his opera Elektra that is a "bitonal synthesis of E major and C-sharp major" and may be regarded as a polychord related to conventional chords...
  
  
• Mystic chord
• Petrushka chord
  Petrushka chord
  The Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonic device used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka and in later music. These two major triads, C major and F# major - a tritone apart - clash, "horribly with each other," when sounded together and create a dissonant chord.-Structure:The Petrushka chord is...
  
  
• Tristan chord
  Tristan chord
  The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D and G. More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented ninth above a root...
  
  
• Psalms
  Psalms
  The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
  
  

Further reading

• Tymoczko, Dmitri (2002). "Stravinsky and the Octatonic- A Reconsideration", p.93. Music Theory Spectrum, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring), pp. 68-102.
• van den Toorn, Pieter C. (1975). "Some Characteristics of Stravinsky's Diatonic Music", p.121. Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Autumn - Winter), pp. 104-138.