Sometimes entrances were halting, and chord passages a little sluggish.
Ms. Tower's two-part piece "Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still" plays with whole tone scales, neo-primitive riffs, Stravinsky-like percussive rhythms and oscillating, arm-blurring chord passages.
Among the devices used to assure clarity are melodies constructed of arpeggiated ("harplike," or broken) chords and passages in unison or in parallel thirds or sixths (sequences of harmonies formed by thirds, such as C E or D F, or sixths, such as C A or D B).
And the final chord on the passage we just played — it is too short.
Some typical musical devices, such as a sudden explosive final chord following a quiet passage, were established at an early stage in Alkan's compositions.
Passages of string chords alternate with similar passages for brass – but, in a work in which they are so prominent, it was a shame the brass weren't having a better night.
(It comes with a strong CD, too, including Sacred Harp singers from Fyffe, Ala., roaring out their giant power chords, and a cathartic passage from the Balinese dance-drama "Barong and Rangda").
Garry Walker and the Opera North Orchestra deliver the score with subfusc efficiency too, rather than the real excitement that some of Britten's greatest orchestral music needs, though some segments will surely improve as the run continues – the famous passage of chords during which Vere tells Billy of his death sentence was distinctly untidy on the first night.
Whole spans of pieces by Mozart and Beethoven are generated through default patterns of pitches: arpeggios, scale passages, chords and the like.
Music using the system of functional harmony has a flow of harmonic movement through contrasting chords and through passages from consonant to dissonant to consonant chords.
