The Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonality device featured in Igor Stravinsky's 1911 ballet Petrushka, as well as in later compositions. It consists of two major chord separated by a tritone; when sounded together, the chords clash "horribly with each other", producing a distinctive and dissonant sound.Pogue, David (1997). Classical Music for Dummies, p. 80.
Structure
A variation of the chord, played by the clarinets, is also shown below. In this instance, the F major triad appears in first inversion:
The device uses tones that, together, make up a synthetic hexatonic scale (0 1 4 6 7 t). When spelled C–D–E–G–G()–B, it is called the tritone scale.Busby, Paul. "Short Scales", Scored Changes: Tutorials. Alternatively, when spelled C–D–E–F–G–B, it can be read as the auxiliary diminished scale.Campbell, Gary (2001). Triad Pairs for Jazz: Practice and Application for the Jazz Improvisor, p.126. .
The chords may be considered to contradict each other because of the tritone relationship: "Any tendency for a tonality to emerge may be avoided by introducing a note three distant from the key note of that tonality."
At the end of the third tableau, the Petrushka chord appears with Petrushka but at A and E, which, with C and F, create a diminished seventh chord (0, 3, 6, 9) and exhaust the octatonic scale (9 1 4, 3 7 t, 0 4 7, and 6 t 1 = 0 1 3 4 6 7 9 t), "and suggests that it did ... possess for Stravinsky an a priori conceptual status".Taruskin 1987, p.268.
Petrushka and origin
Maurice Ravel uses this chord in his piano work Jeux d'eau to create flourishing, water-like sounds that characterize the piece. In his article "Ravel's 'Russian' Period: Octatonicism in His Early Works, 1893-1908", Steven Baur notes that Jeux d'eau was composed in 1901, ten years before Stravinsky composed Petrushka (1911), suggesting that Stravinsky may have learned the trick from Ravel. Stravinsky heard Jeux d'eau and several other works by Ravel no later than 1907 at the "Evenings for Contemporary Music" program. Journal of the American Musicological Society 52 (1999), 531–592.
Stravinsky used the chord repeatedly throughout the ballet Petrushka to represent the puppet and devised the chord to represent the puppet's mocking of the crowd at the Shrovetide Fair.Libbey, Ted (1999). The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection: The 350 Essential Works, p.185. . Eric Walter White suggests and dismisses the possibility that the Petrushka chord is derived from Messiaen's "second Modes of limited transposition" (the octatonic scale) in favor of a "black key/white key bitonality" which results from, "Stravinsky's well known habit of composing at the piano."Eric Walter White (1966). Stravinsky: The Composer and His Works, p. 161. quoted in Taruskin, Richard (Spring, 1985). "Chernomor to Kashchei: Harmonic Sorcery; Or, Stravinsky's 'Angle'", p.75, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 38, No. 1., pp. 72–142.
Other uses
The Petrushka chord is dominantly used in the track Above the Clouds, from the 2003 simulation game Sim City 4.
See also
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