Living Scores Learn - Hans Werner Henze

In the third movement, all 12 pitches are exposed in the opening of the movement, without any interruption.

In this movement, the tonal material is organized in two different types of chords:

• ‘tonal’ triads, where one of the three notes of the triad forms a major seventh or a minor ninth relationship with the fourth note in the chord: Eb-G-B-D; F-Ab-C-B; D#-F#-A-Bb; F#-A-C#-C; E-G-B-C; Eb-F#-Bb-B.

For this second type of chord, Chung summarized nicely the appearances of this chord type in his analysis of the third movement (1). Again, as in the first movement of Five Scenes from the Snow Country, these two intervals underline the fully chromatic ambiance that is set as pitch material for this movement. It feels very ‘atonal’, ‘serial’ or ‘dodecaphonic’ to the listener’s ears. Additionally, all the tonal material in this movement is fully chromatic, all pitches are present starting from the first chords (see above) and all grace note slurs and the closing section of the piece consist of fully chromatic note-reservoirs.

Structurally, this movement can be seen as a chord-based movement, with regular interpunction of thematic material and grace-note slurs. These chords occur both in rolled and sustained form as in single-attacked form. Chung points out that in line 7, the C that is used in combination with Eb, should be in fact a D, to match the exact transposition in the note group that follows (2).

Chung also mentions (3) that the origin of the triad starting on the second page of the movement is not connected to the previous chords of the movement. We believe however that this triad is to be combined with the low C, appearing quite regularly as a basis for the chord in this particular passage. C-E-G-B forms a chord that is one of the ‘tonal triad’ chords as described above.

Chung made an estimation on how long the different fermatas throughout the movement can last in his analysis (4).