ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the nature of chromaticism in modal and tonal music from the sixteenth century to the opening of the twentieth. On the other hand, chromaticism applied against a diatonic background needs to be qualified and contained if the composer wishes to maintain the integrity of the key. Chromaticism, by its very nature, increases tension, depending on how unstable it renders the prevailing tonality. Heinrich Schenker, too, believed that great compositions transformed simple foreground events through a series of compositional manipulations that potentially propel a simple motive into higher levels of middleground structure. Tovey, Dahlhaus, and others, still provide no comprehensive theory of development, and so are ultimately unable to unite the various tendrils of compositional organism into a unified whole. The chapter presents a new theory of art music that is a considerable departure from what is generally taught to our students and from what exists in prior treatises.
