Northern lights chord

Northern Lights chord^[1]  Play (help·info).

In music, the 'northern lights' chord is an eleven-note chord from Ernst Krenek's Cantata for Wartime (1943), that represents the Northern Lights. 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].

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

'Northern lights' chord arrangement^[1]  Play (help·info).

Sources

1. ^ ^{a b c} Erickson, Robert (1975). Sound Structure in Music, p.166 & 168. ISBN 0-520-02376-5.