Northern lights chord

Northern Lights chord^[1]

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In music, the 'northern lights' chord is an eleven-note chord from Ernst Krenek's Cantata for Wartime (1943), that represents the Northern Lights. Krenek's student, Robert Erickson, cites the chord as an example of a texture arranged so as to, "closely approach the single-object status of fused-ensemble timbres, for example, the beautiful 'northern lights'...chord, in a very interesting distribution of pitches, produces a fused sound supported by a suspended cymbal roll".^[1] "The 'northern lights' sounds, so icy and impersonal and menacing, are a brilliant orchestral invention."^[2]

At eleven-notes the chord is one pitch shy of the total chromatic. Every note except E is sounded.

Sources

1 2 Erickson, Robert (1975). Sound Structure in Music, p.166 & 168. ISBN 0-520-02376-5.
↑ Erickson, Robert (1995). Music of Many Means: Sketches and Essays on the Music of Robert Erickson, p.28. Scarecrow. ISBN 9780810830141.

Chords

By form

Triad	Major Minor Augmented Diminished Suspended

Seventh	Major Minor Dominant Dominant seventh flat five Diminished Half-diminished Diminished major Minor-major Augmented major Augmented minor Altered seventh Nondominant Harmonic seventh

Extended	Ninth Eleventh Thirteenth Upper structure Dominant 7♯9 Polychord Tone cluster

Added / omitted	Sixth Augmented sixth Lydian Seven six

Specific	Alpha Bridge Complexe sonore Dream Elektra Farben Grandmother Magic µ Mystic Northern lights Petrushka Psalms So What Tristan Viennese trichord

General	Mixed interval Secundal Tertian Quartal Synthetic chord

By function

Diatonic	Tonic Dominant Subdominant Supertonic Mediant Submediant Leading / Subtonic

Altered	Approach Borrowed Chromatic mediant Neapolitan Passing

Secondary	Secondary dominant Secondary leading-tone Secondary supertonic

Other	Common Contrast Primary triad Subsidiary

Techniques

Other

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