music in 9/8 time

[adrianallan]

sorry I've not around here for a little while

One of my students was trying out a folksong the other day which was in 9/8 time.

That got me thinking - how much music is around that is in 9/8, as I've not come across much. Is it mainly of a particular folk genre?

6/8 is pretty common and for 12/8 I tend to think of a swung 4/4 or tripletised 4/4 like in rock and roll, but I can't think of much in 9/8, popular or otherwise, can you?

[steve]

I've seen it around here and there, but it's as you say: the tripletized 3/4, just as 6/8 is to 2/4 and 12/8 is to 4/4. Not extremely common in my experience, but not too rare either.

[adrianallan]

Is there a particular style of music that uses 9/8 like Waltz uses 3/4, rock n roll 12/8, pop ballad 4/4 ? etc?

Maybe there's something a bit unnatural about tripletised 3-time.

[juan]

9/8 is a very natural time. "Clair de lune", by Debussy, for instance. I don't know about any form that is in 9/8. I rather think 9/8 (in classical music) tends to appear in miniature forms (such as nocturnes, preludes, romances, and so forth), and in slow movements of multi-movement works (i.e. forms that do not adhere to a particular meter, as opposed to dance forms), but I'm just guessing.

[adrianallan]

I had forgotten about clair de lune

I think that some folk music in three that has been tripletised comes out as 9/8 - I have seen this a handful of times in fiddle books.

Maybe my sheet music collection is less varied than yours (although mine is very big - too big!) but I don't have many things in 9/8 that I can recall.

[juan]

You got me quite intrigued, actually. I have sampled some of my music collection (mostly piano), and a very quick page-turning across Bach, Haydn, Granados, Mendelsohnn and Schumann has yielded one hit (a prelude by Bach). Admitting I may have missed some music in 9/8, and some some of it might be disguised as 3/4 with triplets, and I have just sampled a limited fraction of music, it is still a very low proportion!

[steve]

Hmmm, that's strange. Other than the aforementioned works, I can't find any examples either... Not that I checked every piece of music under the roof, but perhaps it is a rare meter. In the scherzo of the Beethoven 9th Symphony there are several extended passages which could be interpreted as 9/8, but considering the constant changes of meter it would have involved, and the fact that Beethoven wrote all his Scherzos in 3/4, I can hardly blame him for shunning 9/8 and 12/8 for these passages.

[David Stowell]

I suspect that 9/8 is not as rare as thought.

Some examples are...
Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.79 (Slow movement)
Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.109 (variation No.4)
Bartok - Mikrokosmos (some of these are in 9/8 though not as 3-3-3)
Brahms - Piano Trio Op.101 (3rd movement - bits of)
Brahms - Piano Sonata No1 (Finale)
Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann (variation 2)
Brahms - Clarinet Trio in A minor, op. 114 (part of the intermezzo)
Brahms - String Quintet Op.111 (1st movement)
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No4 (1st movement, from bar 27)
Tchaikovsky - String Quartet Op.11 (1st movement)
Mahler - haven't checked but more than likely quite a few occurrences
Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries (and other examples in his operas)
Puccini - La Rondine
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West
Verdi - various operas
Gounod - Mireille
Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words op 62/28
Grieg - Nocturne op 54 no 4
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring (along with almost every other time signature!)

Mozart, apparently, never wrote anything in 9/8

[Kevin]

If you get a moment would you like to post some links to these David?!

[juan]

I suspect that 9/8 is not as rare as thought.

Actually, this list confirms that 9/8 is pretty rare indeed!

I missed the Mendelssohn yesterday. I have found a clavecin piece by Couperin (I don't remember which ordre, sorry) and a lyric piece by Grieg (Notturno). A couple of drops in the 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 6/8 and 12/8 ocean, really...

Your list also seems to confirm that there is not a particular genre or form attached to 9/8.

Edit: I see you have the already listed the Grieg Notturno.

[steve]

Feb 10, 2012 13:57:33 GMT David Stowell said:

I suspect that 9/8 is not as rare as thought.

Some examples are...
Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.79 (Slow movement)
Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.109 (variation No.4)
Bartok - Mikrokosmos (some of these are in 9/8 though not as 3-3-3)
Brahms - Piano Trio Op.101 (3rd movement - bits of)
Brahms - Piano Sonata No1 (Finale)
Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann (variation 2)
Brahms - Clarinet Trio in A minor, op. 114 (part of the intermezzo)
Brahms - String Quintet Op.111 (1st movement)
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No4 (1st movement, from bar 27)
Tchaikovsky - String Quartet Op.11 (1st movement)
Mahler - haven't checked but more than likely quite a few occurrences
Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries (and other examples in his operas)
Puccini - La Rondine
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West
Verdi - various operas
Gounod - Mireille
Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words op 62/28
Grieg - Nocturne op 54 no 4
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring (along with almost every other time signature!)

Mozart, apparently, never wrote anything in 9/8

Well I knew I saw it somewhere! Actually I had the Tchaikovsky 4th in mind but I didn't check every bar in the score and I must have missed it. I have several of these in my collection. Think I'll dig them out and get reacquainted.

[David Stowell]

Links of some of the items I listed (as requested by Kevin)....

Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.79 (Slow movement)petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/a/a8/IMSLP51797-PMLP01482-Beethoven_Werke_Breitkopf_Serie_16_No_148_Op_79.pdf (Page 9)


Beethoven - Piano Sonata Op.109 (variation No.4)
petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/b/bc/IMSLP00030-Beethoven__L.v._-_Piano_Sonata_30.pdf (Page 13)
(towards the end of this YouTube clip)

Brahms - Piano Trio Op.101 (3rd movement - bits of)
imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/a/a3/IMSLP23145-PMLP52890-BraWV__S._411f.pdf (Page 22)


Brahms - Piano Sonata No1 (Finale)
216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usimg/4/40/IMSLP06091-Brahms_-_Piano_Sonata_No.1_-_Sauer.pdf (Page 20)


Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann (variation 2)
216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usimg/2/2a/IMSLP08431-Brahms_-_Variations_Op.9_-_Sauer.pdf


Brahms - Clarinet Trio in A minor, op. 114 (part of the intermezzo)
petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/e/e7/IMSLP23158-PMLP41026-BraWV__S._461f.pdf

Brahms - String Quintet Op.111 (1st movement)
erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/5/54/IMSLP23155-PMLP44293-BraWV__S._446.pdf


Tchaikovsky - Symphony No4 (1st movement, from bar 27)
216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usimg/4/49/IMSLP00689-Tchaikovsky_-_Symphony_No_4_in_F_Minor__Op36-1.pdf


Tchaikovsky - String Quartet Op.11 (1st movement)
erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/b/bb/IMSLP06032-Tchaikovsky_-_String_Quartet_No1_in_D_Major_Op11.pdf


Wagner - Ride of the Valkyries
216.129.110.22/files/imglnks/usimg/1/1d/IMSLP45497-PMLP04725-Act_III_-_Scene_1.pdf


Mendelssohn - Songs Without Words op 62/2
erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/6/6b/IMSLP30823-PMLP05355-Mendelssohn-Songs_ohne_worte__all_8_sets_for_piano_.pdf (Page 66)


Grieg - Nocturne op 54 no 4
petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/4/45/IMSLP00183-Grieg_-_Lyric_Pieces__Op_54.pdf (Page 13)

[adrianallan]

thanks for all of those links, David - I have already started to look at some the pieces, especially those where 9/8 is used throughout.

Although we all learn about 9/8 in the context of compound time early in our musical studies, it's not so often that we actually encounter that time signature.

[Deleted]

I've been re-visiting a Bach Prelude and Fugue that is in 9/8 time (piano) that I've been playing for awhile. "Praeludium und Fuge in Es", BWV 876. I would like to have a better understanding of the rhythmic 'feel' to this time signature. I tend it count it in 3's, using the eighth note as the base note. That's perhaps not what I should be doing ...

[juan]

Some more examples of the elusive 9/8, which confirm its elusiveness:

Courtesy of Bach: Prélude of the English suite number 6, Inventio 10, and Sinfonia 15 (in 9/16 actually)

Tchaikovsky: May, from "The Seasons".

[juan]

I've been re-visiting a Bach Prelude and Fugue that is in 9/8 time (piano) that I've been playing for awhile. "Praeludium und Fuge in Es", BWV 876. I would like to have a better understanding of the rhythmic 'feel' to this time signature. I tend it count it in 3's, using the eighth note as the base note. That's perhaps not what I should be doing ...

That is the prelude I mentioned yesterday. I played that one too. I remember it as a rather lively and bouncy piece. I think using the dotted quarter note as the base is the way to go.

[Kevin]

Many thanks for the links David, I am sure that they will be very helpful to everyone that would like to look at the music and listen to it as well.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the guidance Juan. I will give it a try.

[Deleted]

One very near and dear to me from the cello repertoire is the first movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor.



The melody following the introduction is in 9/8.

[juan]

Another indicator of the scarcity of 9/8 music: there is not 9/8 in the main options to create the time signature in Sibelius... ;-)

[wizzarts]

juan, that#s a good answer....

I've got a very old italian book about musical forms. it says eighth are light, quavers are heavy.

That, it says, was one reason that Verdi wrote 3/8 rather than 3/4.

I use 9/8 to give my music more step in weighting ie:

heavy - light - light - medium - light - light - a bit more - light - light

I prefer the natural weighting in the metre (Metrum) to avoid accents which often are too strong...

(

[adrianallan]

I was playing Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring the other day - another piece in 9/8 time

[adrianallan]

I have also noticed something curious from Beethoven's time. In some of his slow movements, orchestral and piano, he will use semiquavers and even demisemiquavers but taken at a very slow tempo.

We would tend to double the metronome mark and use longer-lasting notes like crotchets and minims. I've never really understood why he opted for very slow sixteenths and thirty-second notes - is it something to do with the same reason given for 3/8 instead of 3/4?

[adrianallan]

Also, I've been thinking about this a lot:

Is there any difference between Greensleeves in 6/8 instead of 3/4 if the metronome is adjusted to take account of the different type of beat?

I have seen Greensleeves in 3/4 in some beginner books before 6/8 has been introduced.

[David Stowell]

Adrian
In relation to Beethoven and his use of extreme time signatures look at the following....

raptusassociation.org/son32e.html

...from the paragraph starting 'In its metrical scheme, however, the movement is highly innovative. ' (you'll need to search the page for this text as it is some way down the web-page)

[adrianallan]

thanks, David

To save others the task of looking through all of it, the paragraph is:

In its metrical scheme, however, the movement is highly innovative. The rhythm of the opening figure, quaver-semiquaver, is developed obsessively in variation 1, and reappears twice as fast (with the note values halved) in Variation 2, then twice as fast again (note values quartered0 in Variation 3. To accommodate these subdivisions within the underlying three-beat pulse, Beethoven resorts to peculiar time signatures of 6/16 and 12/32. These are not strictly correct by modern rules, since the former implies two groups of three semiquavers and the latter four groups of three demisemiquavers, but these conventions were not established in Beethoven's day. His notation is anyway perfectly comprehensible, and no modern time signature is capable of indicating a bar consisting of three beats each of which divides into four sub-beats which in turn divide into three. More confusing is his omission of triplet signs and dots, so that in Variation 2 some semiquavers are longer than others (depending on whether or not they are followed by a demisemiquaver--an unintentional revival of a medieval convention formerly applied to breves and semibreves). A similar situation arises in Variation 3. From Variation 4 onwards each beta divides into nine, and so the correct time signature would be 27/32, but Beethoven uses 9/16 with implied triplet signs. thus the Theme and Variation 1 contain bars of 3 x 3; in Variation 2 it is 3 x 2 x 3; in Variation 3 it is 3 x 2 x 2 x 3; and from Variation 4 it is 3 x 3 x 3. It is remarkable that such strange mathematical puzzles could come from a composer who was, as he admitted himself, so bad at arithmetic.

I think that the key quote may be "but these conventions were not established in Beethoven's day".

I have seen it in a few other contemporaries of Beethoven, but it is strange to see a slow piece notated with demisemiquavers - a beginner would associate those type of notes with "very fast" music. These occasional anomalies make music all the more interesting!