Phrygian mode

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The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter. It is also known in Arabic and in the Middle East as the Kurd mode.

Ancient Greek Phrygian mode

The Phrygian tonos or harmonia is named after the ancient kingdom of Phrygia in Anatolia. The octave species (scale) underlying the ancient-Greek Phrygian tonos (in its diatonic genus) corresponds to the medieval and modern Dorian mode.

In Greek music theory, the harmonia given this name was based on a tonos, in turn based on a scale or octave species built from a tetrachord which, in its diatonic genus, consisted of a series of rising intervals of a whole tone, followed by a semitone, followed by a whole tone (in the chromatic genus, this was a minor third followed by two semitones, and in the enharmonic, a major third and two quarter tones). An octave species was then built upon two of these tetrachords separated by a whole tone. This is equivalent to playing all the white notes on a piano keyboard from D to D:

D E F G | A B C D

This scale, combined with a set of characteristic melodic behaviours and associated ethoi, constituted the harmonia which was given the ethnic name "Phrygian", after the "unbounded, ecstatic peoples of the wild, mountainous regions of the Anatolian highlands (Solomon 1984, 249). This ethnic name was also confusingly applied by theorists such as Cleonides to one of thirteen chromatic transposition levels, regardless of the intervallic makup of the scale (Solomon 1984, 244–46).

In later, mediaeval theory, the name was applied to the third of the eight church modes, the authentic mode on E, described as the diatonic octave extending from E to the E an octave higher and divided at B, therefore beginning with a semitone-tone-tone-tone pentachord, followed by a semitone-tone-tone tetrachord (Powers 2001): E F G A B + B C D E The ambitus of this mode extended one tone lower, to D. The sixth degree, C, which is the tenor of the corresponding third psalm tone, was regarded by most theorists as the most important note after the final, though the fifteenth-century theorist Johannes Tinctoris implied that the fourth degree, A, could be so regarded instead (Powers 2001).

Placing the two tetrachords together, and the single tone at bottom of the scale produces the Hypophrygian mode (below Phrygian):

G | A B C D | (D) E F G

Placing the two tetrachords together, and the single tone at the top of the scale produces the Hyperphrygian mode (above Phrygian),^{[citation needed]} which is effectively the same as the Hypodorian mode:

A B C D | (D) E F G | A

Medieval and modern Phrygian mode

Phrygian mode on C

The early Catholic church developed a system of eight musical modes that medieval music scholars gave names drawn from the ones used to describe the ancient Greek harmoniai. In medieval and modern music, the Phrygian mode is related to the modern natural minor musical mode, also known as the Aeolian mode: the Phrygian scale differs in its second scale degree, which is a semitone lower than that of the Aeolian.

The following is the Phrygian mode starting on E, or E Phrygian, with corresponding tonal scale degrees illustrating how the modern major mode and natural minor mode can be altered to produce the Phrygian mode:

E Phrygian
Mode:  E  F  G  A  B  C  D  E
Major: 1 ♭2  ♭3 4  5 ♭6  ♭7 1
Minor: 1 ♭2  3  4  5  6  7  1

Modern uses of the Phrygian mode

Phrygian dominant

A Phrygian dominant scale is produced by raising the third scale degree of the mode:

E Phrygian dominant
Mode:  E  F G♯  A  B  C  D  E
Major: 1 ♭2  3  4  5 ♭6  ♭7 1
Minor: 1 ♭2 ♯3  4  5  6  7  1

The Phrygian dominant is also known as the Spanish gypsy scale, and is often used in flamenco music. Flamenco music uses both Phrygian and Phrygian-dominant often alternating between the two.^{[citation needed]}

"Sus4" chord

In jazz and other popular styles, the Phrygian mode is used over chords and sonorities built on the mode, such as the sus4(♭9) chord. (See Suspended chord.)

Esus4(♭9) chord
E-F-A-B (typical voicing)

Even though the Phrygian mode has a minor tonic triad (E-G-B), the unique characteristic of the Phrygian mode, ♭2 or F, is utilized in this chord instead.

Examples

Medieval and Renaissance

• The following compositions of Josquin are written in the Phrygian mode:

• 4-part setting of Mille Regretz
• Missa Pange lingua
• 6-part motet Praeter Rerum Seriem

• Orlando di Lasso's motet In me transierunt (Pesic 2005, passim).
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's motet Congratulamini mihi (Carver 2005, 77).
• Cipriano de Rore's 7-part Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem

Baroque

• The two chorals in Bach's cantata "Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes", BWV 76, elaborate the Phrygian mode of the original melody, by Matthaeus Greiter (c. 1490-1552) (Braatz 2006)

Romantic

• The horn call that begins and ends the slow movement of Brahms' Fourth Symphony is based on the Phrygian mode, out of which the main theme of this movement emerges.^{[citation needed]}
• Anton Bruckner:
  • Ave Regina coelorum (1885–88) (Carver 2005, 76–77).
  • Pange lingua (second setting, 1868), WAB 33 (Carver 2005, 79; Partsch 2007, 227).
  • Symphony no. 3, passages in the third (scherzo) and fourth movements (Carver 2005, 89–90).
  • Symphony no. 4 (third version, 1880), Finale (Carver 2005, 90–92).
  • Symphony no. 6, first, third (scherzo), and fourth movements (Carver 2005, 91–98).
  • Symphony no. 7, first movement (Carver 2005, 96–97).
  • Symphony no. 8, first and fourth movements (Carver 2005, 98).
  • Tota pulchra es Maria (1878) (Carver 2005, 79, 81–88).
  • Vexilla regis (1892) (Carver 2005, 79–80).
• Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis^{[citation needed]}

Modern

See also

• Phrygian dominant scale

References

• Braatz, Thomas, and Aryeh Oron. 2006. "Chorale Melodies used in Bach's Vocal Works Es woll (or wolle/wollt) uns Gott genädig sein". (April) (accessed 24 October 2009)^{[self-published source?]}
• Carver, Anthony F. 2005. "Bruckner and the Phrygian Mode". Music and Letters 86, no. 1:74–99. doi:10.1093/ml/gci004
• Franklin, Don O. 1996. "Vom alten zum neuen Adam: Phrygischer Kirchenton und moderne Tonalität in J.S.Bachs Kantate 38". In Von Luther zu Bach: Bericht über die Tagung 22.–25. September 1996 in Eisenach, edited by Renate Steiger, 129–44. Internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft für theologische Bachforschung (1996): Eisenach. Sinzig: Studio-Verlag. ISBN 3-89564-056-5
• Gombosi, Otto. 1951. "Key, Mode, Species". Journal of the American Musicological Society 4, no. 1:20–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/830117 (Subscription access) doi:10.1525/jams.1951.4.1.03a00020
• Novack, Saul. 1977. "The Significance of the Phrygian Mode in the History of Tonality". Miscellanea Musicologica 9:82–177. ISSN 0076-9355 OCLC 1758333
• Partsch, Erich Wolfgang. 2007. "Anton Bruckners phrygisches Pange lingua (WAB 33)". Singende Kirche 54, no. 4:227–29. ISSN 0037-5721
• Pesic, Peter. 2005. "Earthly Music and Cosmic Harmony: Johannes Kepler’s Interest in Practical Music, Especially Orlando di Lasso". Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 11, no. 1 http://www.sscm-jscm.org/v11/no1/pesic.html
• Powers, Harold S. 2001. "Phrygian", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, 19:634. 29 vols. London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5 ISBN 978-0-19517-067-2 OCLC 46516598
• Solomon, Jon. 1984. "Towards a History of Tonoi". Journal of Musicology 3, no. 3:242–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/763814 (Subscription access) doi:10.1525/jm.1984.3.3.03a00030

Further reading

• Tilton, Mary C. 1989. "The Influence of Psalm Tone and Mode on the Structure of the Phrygian Toccatas of Claudio Merulo". Theoria 4:106–22. ISSN 0040-5817