Carl Friedrich Weitzmann, The Augmented Triad (1853)1 Summary of excerpts The primary goal of The Augmented Triad,

the first of a series of treatises by C. F. Weitzmann, is to recall the augmented triad from unmerited banishment and carve out a space for it in the musical language of his contemporaries. He analyzes its properties, identifies many uses for it, and compares it favorably with the more familiar diminished seventh chord. Introduction to the Topic: Multiple Meaning Assuming equal temperament,2 Weitzmann shows that the intervals making up this triad remain the same size in all inversions, so that any given augmented triad potentially sounds as much like a six-three or six-four chord as it does a root position chord. This multiple meaning arises from the chord's symmetrical division of the octave. He also writes that certain transpositions of an augmented triad (T4 and T8) contain the same sounds,3 and that the number of possible augmented triads with the same sounds is limited to four. Throughout the treatise, Weitzmann briefly foreshadows later topics, giving a certain life to his earlier abstractions and making later ones familiar when they arrive. For instance, he explains here that raising a major triad's fifth by a semitone produces an augmented triad with three possible inversional interpretations. In reverse, any one of an augmented triad's voices resolves downwards by a semitone to the fifth of a major chord (179-81). His purpose here is to give the reader a sense of how diversely the multiple meaning of our chord can be used in the introduction of tonicizations and modulations. This topic is more central to his understanding of the chord than he lets on; I will return to it near the end of the summary. Origin of the Augmented Triad Weitzmann seeks a tonal account for the augmented triad. He adopts his teacher Moritz
1 The Augmented Triad (1853), trans. Janna Saslaw, in Theory and Practice 29 (2004): 138-228. 2 This is a purposeful choice: his teacher Moritz Hauptmann argued for just intonation. 3 179. Here he equates major third and diminished fourth motion, etc., emphasizing sonority (TX ) over key.

Hauptmann's dualistic conception of major and minor chords, in which the structure of each chord emanates symmetrically from a central pitch, producing two closely related chords:

The augmented triad results from the coupling of what Weitzmann identifies as the most important secondary tones (Nebentone) belonging to those chords' respective keys: minor sixth in a major key, and raised seventh (leading tone) in a minor key.4 These tones determine which augmented triad is best suited to a given key. The above figure generating F minor (Nebenton = E) and C major (Nebenton = A) around a C axis can be transposed to the other two pitches of the same augmented triad, delegating a total of six closely related keys to this one triad, or twenty-four such keys for all possible augmented triads, one major and minor key for every pitch. Weitzmann does not seem to conceive of the augmented triad in terms of voice leading, at least not in its origin (see Voice Leading and Deception below). Instead, he imagines the chord as an independent sonority, formed by mingling two symmetrically generated keys through the use of a particular Nebenton to both of the respective keys as explained above (185), and resolved by the semitone motion of that same tone. Furthermore, Weitzmann writes, the paradigmatic augmented chord not only resolves to major keys on the chord's three notes, but also to any one of their relative minor keys, because they share the same enharmonic Nebentone (e.g., A in C major
and G# in A minor).5 These six keys are given below for one of the augmented triads (189):
C E G# (and its enharmonic equivalents) 1. C Major. 2. E Major. 4. a minor. 5. c# minor.

3. A Major. 6. f minor.

Weitzmann compares the augmented triad with the diminished seventh chord on more than
4 His term for these two chords (F minor and C major in the example) is nebenverwandten Akkorde, hence the word Nebenton for the tone taken from the adjacent chord. 5 187-9. Weitzmann's explanation for relative minor keys is not altogether distinct from his C major/F minor derivation: both methods produce the same results, and both rely on the Nebentone.

one occasion in this excerpt, first to support his tonal derivation of the augmented triad (185), then later to extensively demonstrate their equal usefulness and flexibility (193-201).6 In the first case, he shows that the most important diminished seventh chord built on the leading tone shares its Nebenton with that key's most important augmented triad (containing the leading tone in minor, lowered sixth in major). For example, B-D-F-A and C-E-A in C major share A, the lowered sixth scale degree. Augmented triads and diminished seventh chords have more in common than that, but Weitzmann expresses an important reservation: in inner essence, the one chord forms the most definite contrast to the other (193). He goes no further, so we should take a moment to consider what this contrast might be. Inner Essence Without just intonation to dissolve any ambiguities, the augmented triad's expansive multiplemeaning suggests a conflict between the notation system and the sounding chord itself (more generally, its equal division of the octave). But the notation system the naming of sounds signifies in normal usage a well-defined tonal relationship of those sounds with each other. The large number of enharmonic interpretations for just this one chord hints at an eroding concept of clear tonal coherence. The diminished seventh chord also equally divides the octave, as Weitzmann points out, so one might say much of the same about it. But these two chords have considerably different musical effects. One of the diminished seventh chord's two tritones spans the fourth and seventh scale degrees of a key. Ftis called this dyad an appellative consonance: the sound of the interval is informed by its directed tension, making it an important tonal signifier.7 Even in a diminished seventh chord lacking a clear principal dissonance, its resolution helps to define key and solidify
6 The most important aspects of this latter section are, briefly: (1) both chords are symmetrical, and (2) both chords always share some tone, thus providing a range of voice leading possibilities with each other. 7 To be sure, the diminished seventh chord for Ftis is specifically a minor mode leading tone seventh chord, so the tonally active appellative consonance is the diminished fifth above its lowest note.

a sense of tonality.8 The augmented triad contains no such tonally charged intervals. Weitzmann's standard resolution takes place with the oblique semitone motion of one voice, which has an ornamental quality (such as chromatic 5-6 motion), and also implies to diatonic ears a relatively weak third cycle in the harmonic progression (e.g., IV-VI or III-I). Without key-defining expectations or direct sonorous dissonance, its main features the Nebenton and equal division of the octave undermine key and throw the listener into an indeterminate aural crossroads. Voice Leading and Deception Besides an augmented triad's six closely related keys, Weitzmann writes that its more distant relatives are the parallel major and minor versions of the first six (189). He offers no account of their natural [tonal] origin. If he did, he would have to explain that the augmented chord now contains a second Nebenton, the diminished fourth or augmented second scale degree from the key of resolution, and that these notes are somehow the second most important Nebentone in their respective keys.9 One clue that he might not truly think of an augmented chord's resolution possibilities in these terms is that he substitutes the word chord for key at the moment he brings up the more distant relatives. He clearly hopes to demonstrate a wide variety of voice leading possibilities irrespective of key. It turns out, in fact, that an augmented chord's closeness to its key (or chord) of resolution directly correlates with relative voice leading parsimony: Closest major/minor resolution: one voice m2 / m2. Next-closest major/minor resolution: two voices m2 / m2.

Weitzmann indicates that in its actual use, the augmented triad primarily functions as a kind of suspension (Vorhalt) or postponement of the following consonance (195). It can also be postponed itself by another dissonant chord. In other words, an augmented triad is either a

8 197. By principal dissonance (Hauptdissonanz), Weitzmann seems to mean the acoustic seventh or second interval, which calls for particular treatment. Significantly, he does not recognize a tonally strong tritone. 9 Major or minor third would not be consistent with his rules for resolution and notation, the latter of which is regulated not by its preceding but by its following chord (201).

suspended resolution, or an intermediate dissonance to a directed chord (dominant, applied dominant, diminished seventh, augmented sixth, etc.). Below, the second augmented triad moves to a dominant seventh. Weitzmann calls such prolonged dissonances deceptive progressions:

Deceptive progressions can go on as long as the composer wishes. In the next and final example below, Weitzmann prolongs a single augmented triad by a deceptive progression through every other augmented triad (exhausting all twelve pitch classes!), which ultimately leads to an augmented sixth chord resolving to F major, which I hear as V of B. 10 (Note Weitzmann's choice to double those tones that give the impression of a descending fifth root progression.)

10 The analytical bracket is mine.

Weitzmann's extended comparison of the augmented triad and diminished seventh chord underlines his real focus on voice leading

Chapter X, for instance, shows how every diminished seventh chord shares a tone with every augmented triad. Weitzmann calls such prolonged dissonant progressions deceptive progressions. It has its own being as an independent sonority,11 then If the augmented triad does not merely emerge from ornamental voice-leading, if it is what Kirnberger would call an essential dissonance and has its own being as an independent sonority,12 then Dominant preparations tonal function is analogous to the diminished seventh chord in that the most characteristic chord choice leads to the tonic, with a secondary tone (minor sixth or leading tone) generated by a positive and negative version of the same structure (in this case F minor and C major). [not explained in terms of voice leading parsimony] The assumption here is that the triad has been assigned a root

11 Ibid., 223. [The augmented triad] can be introduced unprepared. 12 Ibid., 223. [The augmented triad] can be introduced unprepared.

----> lead into table of resolutions; explain why C minor doesn't count in the above... Resolution quality [common tone(s)] m2 m2 1 voice moves Major [root, third] minor [third, fifth] 2 voices move minor [root] Major [fifth]

Nearest major/minor resolution: one voice m2/m2. Next-nearest major/minor resolution: two voices m2/m2. [come back to this: complicates root progressions]

demonstrates the augmented triad's symmetrical construction, showing that the intervals of its span and divisions remain equal in all inversions. Without a just intonation system to dissolve any ambiguities, the expansive multiple-meaning of the augmented triad suggests a conflict between the notation system and the sounding chord itself (more generally, the sounding symmetrical division the octave). But the notation system the naming of sounds signifies in normal usage the tonal relationship of those sounds with each other. If the augmented triad does not merely emerge from ornamental voice leading, if it is what Kirnberger would call an essential dissonance and has its own being,13 then the large number of enharmonic interpretations for just one sonority hints at an eroding concept of clear tonal coherence. [go on to talk about its consonance, and differentiate it from what Fetis called the appellative consonance between the fourth and seventh scale degrees a strong tension containing its own assumed resolution; the latter defines key, but the augmented triad undermines key, throwing the listener into an indeterminate aural crossroads] potential problem: I implied the necessity of equal temperament in Weitzmann's understanding of the augmented triad, but Weitzmann still assigns to the triad a tonal function... [I might be wrong here] Q: How important is voice leading to Weitzmann? Cohn suggests that the hexatonic systems, based on voice-leading parsimony (not root motion) account somewhat for Wagner and other unusual 19th C. progressions. Robert C. Cook voice leading that is tonally non-committal === look up secondary tones and their significance
13 [The augmented triad] can be introduced unprepared, Ibid., 223.

But the augmented triad contains no such tonally charged intervals, and Weitzmann's standard resolution takes place with oblique chromatic motion, which has an ornamental, passing quality. Its defining features, the Nebenton and equal division of the octave, undermine key, throwing the listener into an indeterminate aural crossroads.

But the augmented triad contains no such tonally charged intervals. Weitzmann's standard resolution takes place with the oblique semitone motion of one voice, which has an ornamental quality (such as in the chromatic elaboration of 5-6 motion), and also implies to diatonic ears a relatively weak third cycle in the harmonic progression (e.g., IV-VI or III-I). Without key-defining expectations or direct sonorous dissonance, its main features the Nebenton and equal division of the octave undermine key and throw the listener into an indeterminate aural crossroads.

The augmented triad's defining features, the Nebenton and equal division of the octave, do not include any such tonally charged intervals. Weitzmann's standard resolution takes place with oblique chromatic motion, which has an ornamental passing quality, and the Nebenton and equal division of the octave without key defining expectations throw the listener into an indeterminate aural crossroads. for one voice over harmonic stasis. The chord itselfwhich does little to define key.