Picardy third

From Ich habe genug, BWV 82

What makes this a Picardy cadence is shown by the red natural sign. Instead of the expected B-flat (which would make the chord minor) the accidental gives us a B natural, making the chord major.

Listen to the final four measures of "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" with (Play ) and without (Play) Picardy third (harmony by R. Vaughan Williams).[5]

The term was first used in 1768 by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although the device was used in music centuries earlier.[6][7]

Robert Hall hypothesizes that, instead of deriving from the Picardy region of France, it comes from the Old French word "picart", meaning "pointed" or "sharp" in northern dialects, and thus refers to the musical sharp that transforms the minor third of the chord into a major third.[8]

In medieval music, such as that of Machaut, neither major nor minor thirds were considered stable intervals, and so cadences were typically on open fifths. As a harmonic device, the Picardy third originated in Western music in the Renaissance era. By the early seventeenth century, its use had become established in practice in music that was both sacred (as in the Schütz example above) and secular:

William Byrd, Pavane "The Earl of Salisbury", 1612 02

Examples of the Picardy third can be found throughout the works of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries, as well as earlier composers such as Thoinot Arbeau and John Blow. Many of Bach's minor key chorales end with a cadence featuring a final chord in the major:

Picardy third, in blue, in Bach: Jesu, meine Freude (Jesus, My Joy), BWV 81.7, mm. 12–13.[9]

In his book Music and Sentiment, Charles Rosen shows how Bach makes use of the fluctuations between minor and major to convey feeling in his music. Rosen singles out the Allemande from the keyboard Partita in B-flat, BWV 825 to exemplify "the range of expression then possible, the subtle variety of inflections of sentiment contained with a well-defined framework". The following passage from the first half of the piece starts in F major, but then, in bar 15, "Turning to the minor mode with a chromatic bass and then back to the major for the cadence adds still new intensity."[10]

Bach Allemande from Partita 1, bars 13–18

Many passages in Bach's religious works follow a similar expressive trajectory involving major and minor keys that may sometimes take on a symbolic significance. For example, David Humphreys (1983, p. 23) sees the "languishing chromatic inflections, syncopations and appoggiaturas" of the following episode from the St Anne Prelude for organ, BWV 552 from Clavier-Übung III as "showing Christ in his human aspect. Moreover the poignant angularity of the melody, and in particular the sudden turn to the minor, are obvious expressions of pathos, introduced as a portrayal of his Passion and crucifixion":[11]

From Bach "St Anne" Prelude for Organ, BWV 552, bars 118–130

Notably, Bach's two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier, composed in 1722 and 1744 respectively, differ considerably in their application of Picardy thirds, which occur unambiguously at the end of all of the minor-mode preludes and all but one of the minor-mode fugues in the first book.[12] In the second book, however, fourteen of the minor-mode movements end on a minor chord, or occasionally, on a unison.[13] Manuscripts vary in many of these cases.

While the device was used less frequently during the Classical era, examples can be found in works by Haydn and Mozart, such as the slow movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto 21, K. 467:

Mozart, Piano Concerto 21, K467, slow movement, bars 83–94

Philip Radcliffe says that the dissonant harmonies here "have a vivid foretaste of Schumann and the way they gently melt into the major key is equally prophetic of Schubert".[14] At the end of his opera Don Giovanni, Mozart uses the switch from minor to major to considerable dramatic effect: "As the Don disappears, screaming in agony, the orchestra settles in on a chord of D major. The change of mode offers no consolation, though: it is more like the tierce de Picardie, the 'Picardy third' (a famous misnomer derived from tierce picarte, 'sharp third'), the major chord that was used to end solemn organ preludes and toccatas in the minor keys in days of old."[15]

The fierce C minor drama that pervades the Allegro con brio ed appassionato movement from Beethoven's last Piano Sonata, Op. 111, dissipates as the prevailing tonality turns to the major in its closing bars "in conjunction with a concluding diminuendo to end the movement, somewhat unexpectedly, on a note of alleviation or relief".[16]

Beethoven, Piano Sonata, Op. 111, first movement concluding bars

The switch from minor to major was a device used frequently and to great expressive effect by Schubert in both his songs and instrumental works. In his book on the song cycle Winterreise, singer Ian Bostridge speaks of the "quintessentially Schubertian effect in the final verse" of the opening song "Gute Nacht", "as the key shifts magically from minor to major".[17]

Schubert, "Gute Nacht", piano link to the final verse

Susan Wollenberg describes how the first movement of Schubert's Fantasia in F minor for piano four-hands, D 940, "ends in an extended Tierce de Picardie".[18] The subtle change from minor to major occurs in the bass at the beginning of bar 103:

Schubert Fantasia in F minor bars 98–106

In the Romantic era, those of Chopin's nocturnes that are in a minor key almost always end with a Picardy third. A notable structural employment of this device occurs with the finale of the Tchaikovsky Fifth Symphony, where the motto theme makes its first appearance in the major mode.

According to James Bennighof: "Replacing an expected final minor chord with a major chord in this way is a centuries-old technique—the raised third of the chord, in this case G♯ rather than G natural, was first dubbed a 'Picardy third' (tierce de Picarde) in print by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1797 ... to express [the idea that] hopefulness might seem unremarkable, or even clichéd."[19]

• The Christian hymn tune "Picardy", often sung with the text "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence", is based on a French carol from the 17th century or earlier. It is in a minor key, but the final chord is changed to major on the final verse.
• (Unknown) – "Coventry Carol" (written not later than 1591). Modern harmonisations of this carol include the famously distinctive finishing major Picardy third in the melody,[20] but the original 1591 harmonisation went much further with this device, including Picardy thirds at seven of the twelve tonic cadences notated, including all three such cadences in its chorus.[21]
• The Beatles – "I'll Be Back", from the soundtrack album of the film A Hard Day's Night. Ian MacDonald speaks of the way "Lennon is harmonised by McCartney in shifting major and minor thirds, resolving on a Picardy third at the end of the first and second verses".[22]
• Beethoven – Hammerklavier, slow movement[23]
• Brahms – Piano Trio No. 1, scherzo[24]
• Sarah Connor – "From Sarah with Love", final cadence[25]
• Coots and Gillespie, "You Go to My Head". Ted Gioia describes the song as starting "in the major key, but from the second bar onward, Mr. Coots seems intent on creating a feverish dream quality tending more to the minor mode" before finally reaching a cadence in the major.[26]
• Dvořák – New World Symphony, finale[27]
• Bob Dylan – "Ain't Talkin'", the final song on Modern Times (2006), is played in E minor but ends (and ends the album) with a ringing E major chord.[28]
• Roberta Flack – "Killing Me Softly with His Song" ending and resolution. According to Flack: "My classical background made it possible for me to try a number of things with [the song's arrangement]. I changed parts of the chord structure and chose to end on a major chord. [The song] wasn't written that way."[29]
• Oliver Nelson - "Stolen Moments", from the 1961 album The Blues and the Abstract Truth; Ted Gioia sees "the brief resolve into the tonic major in bar four of the melody" as "a clever hook... one of the many interesting twists" in this jazz composition.[30]
• Joni Mitchell – "Tin Angel", from Clouds (1969); the Picardy third lands on the lyric "I found someone to love today". According to Katherine Monk, the Picardy third in this song, "suggests Mitchell is internally aware of romantic love's inability to provide true happiness but, gosh darn it, it's a nice illusion all the same."[31]
• Donna Summer – “I Feel Love” (1977) alternates throughout with an accompaniment of "synth swirls: major and minor; it’s basically a version of what Franz Schubert did for his whole career." [32]

• List of major/minor compositions

• Latham, Alison (ed.). 2002. "Tierce de Picardie (Fr., ‘Picardy 3rd’)". The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-866212-9.
• Ruff, Lillian M. 1972. "Josquin Des Pres: Some Features of His Motets". The Consort: Annual Journal of the Dolmetsch Foundation 28:106–18.
• Rushton, Julian. 2001. "Tierce de Picardie [Picardy 3rd]". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Rutherford-Johnson, Tim, Michael Kennedy), and Joyce Bourne Kennedy (eds.). 2012. "Tierce de Picardie". The Oxford Dictionary of Music, sixth edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957810-8.