> In fact, an appoggiatura on the root is not uncommon, and does not > obscure anything.
As a matter of fact, it does >;) > Charpentier, in fact, specifically writes the figure "Sharp eight" Don't know where is that, but Jerzy cited another example, i. e. Chahos by Rebel. So there are examples in specil cases. > --and there are examples from many different styles, with many > different harmonic implications. Would you mind to name just one? See, I'm not a prof, as I said. Yet just because a prof says "many" I don't see that tips the scales. "Many" without chaper and verse IMO is what Wikpedians call weasel words. Sorry, no offense intended. > Lastly, the ninth chord is in itself a permanent appoggiatura, and > the 9th strengthens the root--it is a very clear and forceful chord. You could say the same about a 4th suspension. Arnold Schönberg wrote a tombeau on occasion of Gustav Mahler's death (op. 19, Nr. 6, June 17th 1911). That piece is full of "unresolved" (correct word?) 4th chords. I said so when we heard that piano piece at school, but the teacher would bark at me that there was nothing unresolved, and I should come out of the baroque ghetto. > Pieces beginning on a ninth chord go back to the middle ages, like > "pas de tor" of Machaut. Machault is an exceptional composer, as I hope you will agree, and this is an exceptional piece (Fronimo score at http://www.gerbode.net/ft2/composers/Machaut/pas_de_tor/pas_de_tor_3.ft3 ). Are you suggesting there is nothing special to a ninth on the first chord in a baroque dance because Machault already had this in one of his triums some 300 years before? (I assume you're not suggesting this, I just want to make myseelf clear.) -- Mathias To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
