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Polytonality

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Polytonality 

in music, the simultaneous use of different tonalities or keys. Bitonality—the use of two different tonalities —is the most common type of polytonality.

In practice, two monotonal lines with independent functional systems and cadences are rarely combined. As a rule, polytonality means the simultaneous use only of the chords of different tonalities. The classic example, the “Petrushka chord” in Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka, combines the tonic of C major and that of F sharp major. Like other chords of this type, the Petrushka chord is strongly dissonant and dramatic. It is used as the “leading harmony” with which Petrushka is identified. Polytonality, one of the elements of the contemporary modal-harmonic system, has been widely used by D. Milhaud, B. Bartok, and other 20th-century composers.

IU. N. KHOLOPOV



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It is tonal though meandering, with deft additions from the chromatic spice rack and occasional collisions with polytonality.
Who protests any more, who rages still against the polytonality of Lourenco Fernandes, or the architecture of the Ministry of Education, or the 'incomprehensible' verses of Murilo Mendes or the personalism of Guignard, for example?
The dark mystery of Verdi's Sicilian Vespers, the fascination of Respighi's The Fountains of Rome where there are hints of polytonality - being in several keys at once - and the sheer joy of Elgar's Overture: In The South.
 
 
 
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