hey:
the chord progression at the very end of The Duel and the beginning of Letters is The Same
the main chord progression in No One Else is the same as the last few bars of The Ball!
yes, & dave talks about those chords being in letters too!
and again at the end of In My House!
see the similarities in the sheet music for No One Else:
Letters:
In My House:
and The Ball:
The Ball, here, being the odd one out because itâs in a different key. personally i like to think that the complexity of the key in The Ball compared to the simplicity of that in No One Else (7 flats vs. 1) reflects Natashaâs mental state. in No One Else, sheâs sure of herself and her love for Andrei, and then of course she meets Anatole, and by the end of act 1 sheâs not totally sure yet what sheâs supposed to feel - until, of course, she reads Anatoleâs letter, and then in Letters sheâs back to being in that simple key of 1 flat again (and in In My House as well) - because sheâs sure again of her love.
i also think itâs worth noting that this chord progression ends with a weird augmented chord thats not totally in the key signature so it makes the music pull to some kind of resolution but doesnât really necessitate what kind. so in no one else, when sheâs happy, the progression resolves to the tonic chord, F major, while in The Ball, it resolves to A flat minor rather than the tonic C flat, because itâs decidedly a less cheerful moment for her and the show.
hellll yeah man!!
also iâm back! and also remembered that the part of the ball before natashaâs âi am seized with feelings of vanity and fearâ also has that duel/letters chord progression, which has probably already been known before but hey:
if we REALLY wanna get into it, now itâs tied to the end of the duel, arguably pierreâs lowest point in the musical â and this progression is then all fancied up with its waltz-like tempo and eigth notes and syncopated beats, natashaâs arguable high point as she dances with anatole. and âlettersâ is the point where they start to switch places (and is balanced between duelâs basic downward progression & the ballâs dancing around tbe keyboard) as natashaâs whole Thing goes absolutely downhill, and Pierre, writing out his depressed woes to Andrey, gets spurred out of his stupor into action by Marya to go kick Anatole out of Moscow
and then they meet and start falling in love and itâs really nice
i honestly donât know why i havenât paid more attention to that chord progression before now but since you bring it up i wanna look at it more closely. these progression seems to pop up a lot when anatole is getting into Shenannigans (usually with natashaâŠ), which is why it pops up in The Ball and Letters and elsewhere.Â
(i think it actually sneakily appears earlier in The Duel too, in the âdrink with me, my loveâ section. itâs kind of hard to hear since that section is just unison voice until the âwoahsâ, but iâm pretty sure itâs there)
but back to natasha, and The Ball: here, that theme is played in a waltz. itâs definitely a high point emotionally for her, but if that theme might represent anatoleâs shenannigans, i think that waltz tempo represents natashaâs happiness. that lilting waltz tempo seems to follow her in all her important character moments in the show - in Moscow, in No One Else, at the end of Letters and In My House - and here too.Â
but you also have those syncopations in the melody that donât quite line up with that waltzy style. i think, rhythmically, this is where anatole comes in, because if natasha is represented by a waltz 3, anatole is very much represented by a strong beat in 2 or 4. his strong, dominating personality, is literally dominating over natashaâs in this scene, in the action and in the music. and then in letters, we see the theme in a straight 4:
so if anatole is associated with that strong duple meter and natasha is a waltz 3, what about pierre (lol)? well, look at his song âPierreâ:
12/8 time signature, with two-against-three rhythms. the two rhythms donât really line up but one canât power over the other, and the time signature suits both duple meter and triple meter almost equally. i think thereâs a clear parallel here in these rhythms and pierreâs mania, confusion, anxieties, and depression. he canât make up his mind, neither can his music. it might be a reach of a theory, but, hey, âDust and Ashesâ is in 12/8 too, and his âhereâs to happiness, freedom, and lifeâ section in âThe Abductionâ.
and this last part might be a stretch but i think thereâs a link between natasha and pierre in that Duel/Letters progression as itâs used in The Ball. looking at it, that syncopated melody feels like it wants to be in 2 while the tempo is a 3, just like in âPierre.â
#for what itâs worth i think dolokhov is represented by that driving low string/percussion you hear in the duel and preparations#marya is represented by heavy waltz in accordion#sonya is piano ballad#and mary/old prince are some kind of chromaticism and tonal dissonance#balagaâŠ.well he;s just for fun#druid-for-hire#music theory#great comet#npatgco1812#dave malloy#GOD analyzing this stuff is so much fun#i really hope you dont mind me spewing a bunch of bullshit about chords and rhythms on your post lmao
i donât mind at all!
youâre completely correct about that anatole/natasha stuff in The Ball; thereâs a post about that somewhere. (x)
also about instrumentation symbolism: very much so! marya is almost confirmed accordion, and helene is⊠piano, in a different form that i donât know enough about music theory to describe. but you hear it when she first meets natasha, saying âso beautiful, what a charming young girl,â utterly enchanting natasha, before marya so abruptly cuts in with her accordion ditty lol
(aaaand also charming starts out with some Groovy Piano too⊠and charming has some syncopation. mostly in the piano⊠and also the Groove just gets you in that syncopated mood even if its not outright in the instrumentation. hm hm hm)
balaga⊠heâs egg. shooka shooka
as for sonyaâs piano ballad⊠i donât know if it qualifies as one, but the beginning of sunday morning is both foreboding and also fairly sonya-ish to me and then gets cut by marya again, shouting TIME FOR CHURCH, and the piano dives way into the bass clef as marya commandeers the stage and also segues into the Ball tone also love how it goes back into Ball-Mode when natasha starts talking about anatole and⊠well, the ball
i also wonder if the piccolo ties into anything or is just a really cool instrument that dave likes? because boy it is having a grand fucking time near the end of sunday morning and in the opera, among others
back to instrumentation: i donât think the 12/8 stuff is a stretch at all! i feel like weird rhythms like duplets/triplets to represent conflict is a really common thing; I know Next to Normal has had something like that in Superboy and the Invisible Girl, where i think thereâs a 5/7 time sig????? also, his internal conflict doesnât start to really really resolve until heâs chasing anatole around moscow so it very makes sense for his bit in the abduction to be his classic 12/8, and man is it nice to hear Great Comet of 1812 (finale) bend heavily on the Pierre melody/chord progression while sitting on a neat 4/4 time. no more of that angsty vitriol and spitting judgement. just pierre and his happy heart
(edit: also, having played Pierre before, you really have to be hammering on that keyboard, especially for the angry russian mood. shit is Loud. pierre was really a flaming mess)
i think where it gets confusing is that some characters are defined more by musical styles than by instruments. like, natasha is obviously waltz, and anatole is electronic/techno (because he electrifies the room lmao) but others are more instrument-defined, like marya and her in-your-face accordion. i think where helene is represented by a style rather than a specific instrument, and i think sheâs jazz. amber grey just does jazz so well, and âCharmingâ is probably the jazziest number in the show. her entrances usually shift whatever song theyâre in to a jazzier feel too, like in âThe Duelâ and at the end of âSunday Morningâ.
and definitely helping that i think is how open the score is to improvisation in the orchestra. the orchestra actually talk about that in these videos which i absolutely LOVE as a musician myself. particularly the clarinet gets a ton of opportunities to improvise, like in âDust and Ashesâ, âBalagaâ and âThe Abduction,â and elsewhere. and almost definitely in âCharmingâ too, since improvisation is a technique widely used in jazz music!
man i agreeâŠitâs so good to see pierreâs emotional arc and arrival to stability be mirrored in the music. itâs been mentioned in other posts how in âPierreâ the chords are constantly cycling between minor and major, like his emotions, but ultimately head downward and end in minor; in âPierre and Natashaâ you see the same cycling between minor and major, except this one ends on a major chord because theyâre both finally happy and their conflicts are resolved.Â
(to add onto that, âPierre and Natashaâ has that stability of a steady 4/4 time signature, and the simplest, most exposed music of the entire show. insert something about emotional stability and intimacy here.)Â
some slightly tangential other details: the swelling in the dynamics of âPierreâ, how the music crescendos and diminuendos before the vocals even start, TOTALLY establishes this emotional thesis for pierre without even a word being spoken. and to return to those chords from the beginning of âPierreâ and bring them back in the finaleâŠit makes my heart flutter
and if we wanted to talk complicated time signatures conveying chaos and discomfort, look no further than âSonya and Natashaâ. it starts in 4/4, but it changes a lot, and includes bars of 2/4, Ÿ, Ÿ but counted in 1, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, and thereâs even a bar of 15/8. not to mention that much of the time the rhytms in the piano have that same two against three feel to them.
ahhhh see musical styles, THATâS the missing piece. iâve been ruminating for a long time about characters tied to instruments, but hadnât thought about styles, lol.
re: key cycling in Pierre, yeah thatâs one of the things I noticed when I played it. thereâs so many things in those first four bars that speak so much about pierreâs anxieties and depression and general frustrated soul-searching: the ending harmony of Prologue, the way Pierre just comes hammering in, the fluctuating dynamics, the 12/8 time and duplet/triplet combo, the additional use of sustain pedal making things MORE crowded and confusing, the changing key, how starting off with both hands having the same notes an octave apart adds more crowded confusion because itâs essentially jamming the same chord over and over really fast with the sustain pedal layering them on top of each otherâŠ. go OFF, dave malloy. straight up, just playing Pierre feels like an existential crisis
also, i didnât know that about the improvisation!!! or the time sigs in Sonya & Natasha!!! man i wish i had more than the first page of the songs from google images to go off of. honestly, i can only imagine how many more of those are in âin my houseâ through to ânatasha very illâ
edit: itâs also funny to me how Sonya & Natasha starts out in major (i think, or at least is almost there), and seems to have breaks of major interjected through it before everything just devolves into chaos. sonya starts out distressed, but the music isnât; it only climbs with the tension between them. maybe itâs a reflection of âeverything had been going so well and great googly moogly itâs all gone to shit.â also, can you check for me: does the music start to reflect The Ball again when natasha starts talking about anatole, a bit around/after âit seems to be iâve loved him a hundred yearsâ / âi have no willâ?
ALSO: i found it so cool how malloy uses techno shit blended into more traditional music. everyone is Aware Heâs A Genius. but i just wanted to point specifically to the point in the musical where natasha poisons herself, interjected in pierre & anatole, using a literal musical pixellated breakdown to go right alongside natashaâs breakdown. (and then she cries out, and runs offstage for sonya.) oops! your game has crashed.
like wow i love that. (plus the alternative, audio-only interpretation of anatole having a mental breakdown entirely because he canât handle the concept of other peopleâs feelings asshdhshgddh obv not entirely true, but)
malloy has also apparently used the 1-up(?) soundbyte from a game for the end of The Abduction after Marya enters?????? and the weird synth descent. itâs, according to him, a âgame overâ moment and sounds like it too
(side note: holy fucking shit heâs a gigantic dweeb)
starting to branch out of music theory and just general admiration for malloyâs orchestration, but man, dude, i do love how the entrance music for dolokhov & helene @ the opera arenât some grandeur trumpet shit. itâs bangin fuckin strings, because these are two of the highest in high society, but the dark music points out how theyâre also very fearedâdolokhov the assassin, helene the snake and queen of society. you donât want to make eye contact with that shit. itâs almost frightening. it feels like such a simple choice, but man, who would think to make it?
(bless malloy and his liberal use of cello btw)
youâre so right about how chaotic it is just to play âPierreâ and iâd say that even goes for âDust and Ashesâ too. and honestly the whole score. there is so much emotion embedded into the music itâs insane. dave malloy you beautiful bastard.
for me at least, thinking about sonya with the idea in mind that sheâs represented musically with piano ballads, it makes sense that âSonya and Natashaâ starts out with piano in a major key, right? because a lot of pop ballads can be quite sad with deceptively happy tunes. and âSonya Aloneâ is in a major key the whole way through but is definitely one of the sadder moments of the show.Â
(to answer your question, if thereâs any reprisal of chords or motifs from âThe Ballâ in âSonya and Natashaâ, i canât find anything beyond those syncopated 2 against 3 rhythms, which pop up all over the show. there could be something hidden in there but i canât find it myself)
and the incorporation of techno/electronica around anything related to anatole is so smart. it literally doesnât show up in the music until âThe Operaâ with âand then a rush of cold air.â and it pops up again throughout until you get to âPierre and Anatoleâ and thereâs that explosion of technological chaos (which. i agree, holy shit, genius) and then as anatole leaves foR PETERSBUUUURRRRGGG the last threads of electronic music used in the show slowly fade out with him in the beginning of âNatasha Very Illâ. so good. iâd never thought of it in the sense of it being anatoleâs brain crashing at the mere concept of having human empathy but thatâs hilarious and i love it
honestly i had no idea there were parts of the music that were inspired by video game music but it doesnât surprise me in the slightest. dave is a huge nerd and we LOVE that. (plus itâs not like itâs the first time heâs had nintendo in mind while writing musicâŠ)
thereâs SO MUCH to admire in this showâs music itâs like being in literature class, except more fun. i agree with you completely about the strings for helene and dolokhov but something thatâs interested me for a while about this daveâs orchestrations is the almost complete and utter lack of brass. like, cometâs orchestra is woodwinds (but no sax or flute, like other broadway orchestras), full strings sections, accordions, piano/keys, and drums/percussion, plus electronic-y sounds. itâs very supper-club-cozy-sounding. (also as an oboe player iâm super in love with the fact that thereâs an oboe part). and even with this somewhat unusual arrangement of instruments thereâs HUGE variety in the style of music they can play, which is just so much more refreshing to hear than when people only write music in safe, standard styles.
(plus, brass instruments are LOUD. thereâs a limit to how loud a clarinet or a cello can be. the amount of sound this showâs orchestra can blast at you, as well as the nuance and quiet they can make, all without brass, is a mark of an extremely well-written score and a very good ensemble of instrumentalists. bravo, bravo!)
on a related but slightly tangential note, talk of orchestration reminded me of ghost quartet. more specifically, how lady usher says âAnd there are only certain peculiar sounds, like those from stringed instruments, which do not inspire me with horrorâ, and itâs a show whose instrumentation is entirely percussion or strings. so clever.
#please add more music theory things because im starting to run out#is there anything in pierre&andrey the longer this post gets the more im pouring over the score to find new interesting things to talk about lol. now im glad i got it!!
i mean, letâs start with the obvious: âthereâs a war going on.â i canât think of a better use of callback in a musical. like, hereâs this character weâve never directly met before, but this whole show has been about drama surrounding him. heâs finally showed up, and one of the first things he says is a punch to the gut that reminds us, 1. heâs seen some Shit, and 2. the drama weâve been so wrapped up in this whole time is, actually, not that big a deal at all, because thereâs a war. and itâs this brilliant callback that ties back in the very first line of the show, except now andrei is here. and what a sorry welcome he came home to. poor guy
on another note, the chords in âPierre and Andreyâ are kind of interesting now that iâm looking at them more closely. like how in other songs with pierre thereâs that struggle between major and minor chords and keys, and itâs present here too, but with an interesting role reversal. because the chord structure in much of this song looks like this:
start on a low minor chord, go up a couple steps, go up again to a major chord, again to another major chord, then back down. falling and resetting back to the lowest minor chord. andreiâs trying so hard to be optimistic here, he just canât. (and here specifically is interesting because in andreiâs line, the G minor is followed by B flat minor, while pierreâs response goes from G minor to B flat major, though i canât see if this is a consistent pattern in the writting or not.) at any rate, pierreâs lines play a lot more in major chords than andreiâs: heâs trying to cheer his friend up, and heâs finally begun his transition from depression to happiness that we see culmanate in the next two songs.Â
edit: i donât know why i havenât mentioned this yet! i wonder if dave had any specific musical inspirations when writing the prologue. to me, it sounds so similar to a jewish folk song called chad gadya. (basically the hebrew/aramaic equivalent of âthere once was an old woman who swallowed a flyâ) (or at least, it sounds similar to the version i know. there are a lot of versions out there.) itâs got that same cumulative structure (which now that i think about it you can also see in the 12 days of christmas!) of every verse adding a new line and then you sing all the preceding ones with it before going on.
god. itâs all so good. i love this show so much.
hmm thatâs fair re: sonya alone⊠never thought about that! i kind of just always interpreted the major key instrumental as sonyaâs small hope, her love for natasha, her devotion, her goodness. that she still has this chance to make things right: stop natasha from eloping. (and it all sort of hurries way down the drain when natasha attempts suicide. thatâs not pleasant for anyone to see their closest friend go through)
and hmmm thatâs strange, because that section there feels vaguely Ball-y to me, especially in the off-broadway soundtrack. hmmâŠ.
re: anatole, hell yeah hell yeah iâve seen in posts before how that anatole blazes in, electrifying the musical down to the very orchestration with his presence and his stupid platnium-blonde razor peacock hair. god itâs so cool. he strikes the orchestra with a rush of cold air, the auditory representation of a sudden blaze of light, and a deep, deep synth that will rattle your core if itâs loud enough. and given that it briefly drowns out all the audio in the youtube boot before the mic can readjust, iâm betting it kind of is. and like you said, the last throes of techno and all the highs that came with it drain out, and weâre left with⊠everything as it was before, and what a mess itâs become.
re: lack of brass, part of the reason(s) feels like the combined fact that this musical was originally written in a tiny ars nova space where brass would not have fared well on peopleâs ears without drowning too much of the vocals and other instruments (and STILL wouldnât on broadway given audience proximity to walkways and the pit), and⊠idk maybe a general dislike for brass when writing, which, i mean, i feel. brass obviously has its place, and iâm sure he enjoys it where it crops up in other music, but it doesnât seem to fit in with malloyâs writing style if you ask me???? but i dunnoâŠ. maybe iâm wrong. i mean, iâm not sure russian folk music really uses brass? then again, i donât really listen to russian folk music
re: ghost quartet, i know iâve brought this up before BUT: yes, everyoneâs got percussion or string-based instruments! which is so cool! and the charactersâ/storytellersâ main instruments specifically are all involving string (piano, autoharp, harp, cello) and itâs likeâŠ. weaving tales and stories and timelines and life-threads and wowie ahhhhhhhh
and BRO ive heard all this shit about how that âthereâs a war going onâ line hits so hard, but gooood hearing about the chords too⊠my heart. dave you genius. alternative bonus: tolstoy may have written the line âbut i canât be that man,â but the way malloy presents it specifically is so fucking cool & thereâs literally like, 3 different ways to interpret it. 1) i canât be the man who could forgive natasha after something like this. 2) i canât be the man i was who said he would forgive a âfallen womanâ for something like this. 3) i canât be that man, meaning anatole.Â
thereâs a musical director whoâs reacted to bits of great comet, and he does make that connection from prologue to 12 days of christmas!! maybe youâll get a kick out of it? (fair warning: having reacted to heathers prior to this one, he rags on heathers quite a bit lol, comparing it to great cometâs frankly ingenious writing)
that major key thing re: sonya and her music probably honestly works with both ideas, that thing i mentioned about piano ballads and what youâre saying about it being, like. always that litle bit of hope and goodness she has in her. sonya is good (also it sets up a nice juxtaposition when all hope is lost and she sings âNatasha Very Illâ in such a dark, minor tone)
also, i remember the very first time i listened to great comet, i wasnât sure what to make of it at first (though i thought it was interesting). the part that really caught my attention and made me think âoh wow this is Good i love itâ was actually âNatasha and the Bolkonskysâ, specifically the âconstrained and strainedâ part. because that line sounds crunchy and uncomfortable and dissonant whichâŠreally really obviously demonstrates the tone of the scene and how both mary and natasha feel at that moment, and does a great job of conveying that feeling to the audience. why? because the interval theyâre singing is a minor second. the note mary sings is only a half step off from what natasha sings, at the same time, and when two notes are so close to each other in pitch but refuse to match it sounds really uncomfy like that. (and also, it BLEW MY MIND that a broadway show had held minor seconds in the main vocals!! and theyâre so exposed!! you really donât see anything like that anywhere else and it just goes to prove even more how out there daveâs composing style is. itâs so risky but i think it pays off)
and to be fair iâm more familiar with the broadway version of the show than the off-broadway ver since i listen to it more and thatâs the sheet music i have. plus iâm just a dork who spends too much time thinking about music, iâm not exactly a music theory expert, so itâs 100% possible and likely that there is some connection there between âThe Ballâ and âSonya and Natashaâ or something to that extent which iâm just not picking up on. this show is crazy inricate. if you think you hear something thereâs probably something there lol
definitely yes about the acoustics of brassâŠi mean thereâs a good reason people in orchestras joke about how trombones donât know what âpianoâ means lmao. i mean, iâve seen some shows that are just far too loud to be enjoyed (i bring a pair of earbuds with me whenever i see shows now just in case), and thatâs when every actor and instrument is micâed and theyâre on a regular stage and thereâs sound guys in the back monitoring everything. to try to maintain good audio levels in such a huge space when the actors and instruments are literally everywhere would be IMPOSSIBLE if you didnât have instruments which were A. naturally quieter and B. more subtle in their dynamic control. the exceptions to this would be the accordions, which are used mostly for the louder, rowdier moments in the show, and the drums. the way they control the drumsâ volume is by sticking them in their own little balcony, away from everything else, surrounded by soundproofing plastic walls. itâs like the Percussionist Cage. theyâre trapped in there for our own good.Â
im also not super familiar with russian folk music but itâs a good point, i donât suppose they typically make heavy use of brass. though that might be a feature of a lot of styles of folk music? just thinking about it from the perspective of what those musicians would have available to make instruments from. lots of wood, not as much metal. when i think of american folk music i think mandolin and banjo, and for celtic music i think whistles and fiddle, but i canât really think of a folk style where brass is the dominant instrument type? (not counting military band musicâŠi donât know how much one would want to argue if that counts as âfolkâ or not but i bet probably not)
iâve never looked at that line like that before!! i never took it to mean much beyond âi canât forgive her like i said a man shouldâ, and maybe thinking heâs a bit of a hypocrite for it. but you totally can read it differently like that which is so cool. dave took an already beautifly complex piece of writing and made it deeper and more complex and more beautiful i mean how do you even do that
anyway⊠dave malloy i mean seriously what the fuck. how are you this good.
oh hell yeah the constrained and strained!!!!! i LOVED how crunchy and strongly dissonant it was. first time i heard it, i was already well aware of the use of dissonance for chaos and discomfort because of its use in the classical stuff i play, but to hear it in a broadway showâŠ.. ahh ahh ahhhhhhhhhhh. dave MALLOY. and the fucking Opera vocals. legit avant garde opera. go OFF, dave and gelsey and paul pinto. gelsey also talks about some of her friends from that vocalist world lovin those extended vocal techniques used because when have you ever gotten this shit on broadway before this, lbr
branching off a little: a lot of more negative reviews of the show ive seen refer to the plot being convoluted and hard to follow⊠which makes me think, because it wasnât very hard on my first listen-through besides keeping track of every character, and even then small issues were later resolved just by listening and catching on. The Opera switches a LOT, and it makes me think how not-for-commonfolk it is. the way itâs written does a lot of relying on the abilities of parsing the language and reading between the lines (mostly for things that are still probably obvious but not outright said) and generally being able to keep up, to vibe with the moods that dave jumps between. itâs for the small things too, like catching that sonya & natasha are mimicking and making fun of marya in Moscow when they say each othersâ names in that high and imperious voice. and, like, it works for me, it works for you, but it doesnât work for everyone. sad
yes!! the extended technique stuff in the opera!! itâs SO out there and so cool to hear in a mainsream(ish) show. definitely not everyoneâs cup of tea and it takes some getting used to but it can be used to really cool effect
i mean you could also chalk up the negative reviews to people justâŠhating fun and creativity lol. but it is a valid point that this kind of music and storytelling is too new and complicated and downright weird for some people to like. i never thought it was hard to follow (for me i was figuring out what made me like the show so much, why i was drawn to it, what it means, etc. that took some thinkin). i guess it all boils down to personal opinions and thatâs all fine and good. i sort of feel sorry for all the folks who donât like great comet and canât/donât have the appreciation for how smart it is⊠but purely from a composition standpoint, i think we can all agree that itâs a genius piece of work.Â
