music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, the Farben chord is a chord, in ascending order C–G–B–E–A, named after its use in ''

Five Pieces for Orchestra The ''Five Pieces for Orchestra'' (''Fünf Orchesterstücke''), Op. 16, were composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1909, and first performed in London in 1912. The titles of the pieces, reluctantly added by the composer after the work's completion upo ...

'', Op.16, No. 3, "Farben" (German: "

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

s") by

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

. Its unordered

pitch-class In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave posit ...

content in normal form is 01348 (e.g., C–C–E–E–G), its

Forte number In musical set theory, a Forte number is the pair of numbers Allen Forte assigned to the prime form of each pitch class set of three or more members in ''The Structure of Atonal Music'' (1973, ). The first number indicates the number of pitch c ...

is 5-z17,Allen Forte, "The Golden Thread: Octatonic Music in Webern's Early Songs, with Certain Historical Reflections", in ''Webern Studies'', edited by Kathryn Bailey, pp.74–110. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.98n21. . in the taxonomy of Allen Forte. The identity of the Farben chord, however, depends on ordering of its pitches in a particular voicing. It is enharmonically equivalent to a minor/major

ninth chord In music theory, a ninth chord is a chord that encompasses the interval of a ninth when arranged in close position with the root in the bass. Heinrich Schenker and also Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov allowed the substitution of the dominant sevent ...

: A–C–E–G–B. According to Forte,Allen Forte, "The Golden Thread: Octatonic Music in Webern's Early Songs, with Certain Historical Reflections", in ''Webern Studies'', edited by Kathryn Bailey, pp.74–110. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.98. . Schoenberg developed the pentad canonically in "Farben" (also titled "Summer Morning by a Lake" or "Chord-Colors"), while

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( , ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sm ...

used the chord as one of three on which Act I scene 2 of ''

Wozzeck ''Wozzeck'' () is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama '' Woyzeck'', which the German playwright Georg Büchner left incomplete at ...

'' is based. The pentad is "almost

octatonic An octatonic scale is any eight- note musical scale. However, the term most often refers to the symmetric scale composed of alternating whole and half steps, as shown at right. In classical theory (in contrast to jazz theory), this symmetrical ...

" and has been called "a 'classic'

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...

set type". The chord relates the movement to the other movements of the piece, with it appearing as the first chord of movement No.2 and in movement No.4, "The figure in the first

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

f op.16/IVis actually a horizontal version of the chord from the preceding movement."Elizabeth L. Keathley, "Schoenberg's Op. 16/IV: An Examination of the Sketches", ''Theory and Practice'' Vol. 17 (1992): pp.67–84, citations on pp.77&80.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Farben Chord Chords