In the third full measure of this tune there are two chords. IOW, the 5th and 6th left hand chords. What are they? I know what they are, but they just don’t sound right. Convince me I am wrong.
Chopin rocks.
I don’t have the score handy—can you link to it?
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Never mind, I found it.
http://www.allpianoscores.com/free_scores.php?id=249
Those chords are C minor and A-flat major 7, in a very weird inversion, with the major seventh tone on the bottom. It functions more as a little pedal point forming a contrapuntal floor while the chord above it slightly ascends. It gives a pulling feeling, as though pulling against resistance, with left-hand dissonance that isn’t even resolved! Which was radical for that day and age! Plus, the right-hand F# is a bizarre dissonance to toss in on top of that, because it’s enharmonic with G-flat, the flat-seventh tone, over a major-seventh chord with G natural on the bottom. It was a daring experiment for the 1820s.
I mean, you have the tones F#, G natural, and A-flat all sounded simultaneously, and then not even resolved. The only comparable dissonance prior to this was, I think, the first tutti chord in the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, with every note in the scale sounded simultaneously. That’s the closest thing in 19th-century music to “A Day in the Life.”
Music theory rules. 
Excellent work Johanna.
You can listen to it here.
Thanks for the info and link, Johanna. You may know of this excellent site for scores also. My A7 chord won’t be pulling anything for a while, as I can quite make the four-finger position as of yet. As for Chopin, I know very well when he lived and composed, but I can never shake the feeling that he did both fifty years later. He seems so modern to me, but then I’m not especially well-versed in the piano literature.
That’s an A-natural there. The chord to me sounds like a diminished chord, in the context of the piece, but you got that weird G in the bass.
You can hear a very similar trope, in both the melodic and the harmonic aspect, in the national anthem of Mauritania.
Oh my gawd… you’re right. :smack: Scratch everything I said above. When I saw the C minor chord, I must have in my mind switched to the whole C-minor key signature including A-flat, instead of G minor with A natural. That’s what you get for hurrying to be the first to post the answer.
So what it actually is is a C-minor-6th inversion. Minor-6th chords (minor triads with a major 6th added) always sound pretty eerie and tense (they include a tritone between the minor 3rd and the major 6th, which produced the “diminished” sound). Meanwhile, the F# in the melody is still drastically dissonant, but the C-minor chord implies a plagal resolution to G minor, and the F# serves as a leading tone for the G, only here overlaid on the subdominant chord instead of being part of the dominant chord. It’s still quite daring harmony for the 1820s.
One shouldn’t always try to construct explanations that involve inversions as chords. Such explanations look correct on paper, but very often, a note actually doesn’t belong to the chord that accompanies it.
What we have here is a typical subdominant -> dominant -> tonic progression over a tonic pedal point, in D major (the modulation from G minor to D major having been heralded by the C# in measure 6).
The first and second beats of measure 7 comprise the subdominant G minor with an added 6th, which is a very common chord, and a pedal point D. Some would want to interpret it as a diminished E minor 7 in the third inversion, but that would just be silly. By the way, the fact that we find the D in the bass doesn’t make it an inversion - that’s just a pedal point.
The third beat is the dominant A major, that logically follows after G minor 6. The pedal point D, of course, persists and should not be mistaken for a chord note. The only chord notes here are A (dominant) and C# (leading note). You don’t need an E to complete the chord, the root and the third are enough to sufficiently define it.
Now, trying to factor that F# into that chord would give anyone a headache, which is no wonder, since it simply doesn’t belong there. The F# is not part of the chord; it’s not even part of the measure. It’s a so-called anticipation. It belongs to measure 8, but has impatiently rushed into measure 7, sounding before its time. Most composers would have it apeear an eighth note later, instead of squarely on the third beat, but it’s not unheard of, even before Chopin.
What makes this chord sound so unsettling is the fact that while pedal points and anticipations are nothing uncommon, employing them in that particular constellation is something quite unusual.
To sum it up, we have:
G + Bb + E = Subdominant iv6 (or iv5/6, if you like) over a pedal point D, followed by:
A + C# = Dominant, still over the pedal point, with an intruding anticipation F#.
But I admit, I was very confused when I heard it for the first time. I thought the pianist hit a wrong note.
Yeah, that’s probably the most sensical interpretation. For me, it’s the F# on top of the Cm6 that gives me that diminished sound–the left hand chord alone doesn’t have that same tension. Regardless, Chopin’s harmonies are always fun and lush and quite “jazzy” (for lack of better word) for his time.
I agree with your general points, but I’m confused as to where you are in the score. We’re talking about the chord in the third beat of the third measure. There’s no C-sharp in that measure, and there is no D pedal point there.
Oops! I assumed you were talking about measure 7, because that’s the one that sounds the weirdest. :o
Now that I’m looking at the right part of the score, Johanna’s interpretation starts making sense. 
But the chord clearly sounds like a dominant, not like a subdominant, which is what Johanna’s explanation of an inverted C minor would suggest. To me, it’s a V7/9 (D, F#, A, C, Eb) with its root (D) omitted, over a pedal point G. One could also say it’s a vii7 over pedal point G, depending on where one’s coming from.
Bach seemed to be very fond of that V7/9 over pedal point tonic, he used it a lot.
Very interesting discussions, even with my limited knowledge of musical theory.
Would anyone like to comment on the sudden switch in tonality, if that is the correct word, at measure 17? Especially in the context of whether this was a common musical “thing” at the time? Of course, any comments about it are welcome. Would this be properly called a modulation? In my experience in symphonies and such, modulations occur a bit more gradually, but here, suddenly there we are in a major key. Not having much experience playing the piano, it still jolts me a bit even though I’ve been learning this for a few weeks now.