Petrushka chord

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The Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonic device used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka and in later music. The very dissonant chord is most associated with the emotions of shock or horror.

1 Structure
2 Petrushka
3 Other uses
4 Source

[edit] Structure

The Petrushka chord is not an individual chord, but rather a succession of intervals. It is defined as two simultaneous major triad arpeggios separated by a tritone. The lower voice is under first inversion. In Petrushka Stravinsky used C Major on top of F-sharp Major:

Listen to this segment (MIDI file)

The device uses tones that, together, make up most of the octatonic scale.

[edit] Petrushka

Stravinsky used the chord constantly throughout the ballet Petrushka to represent the puppet and the puppet's mocking of the crowd at the Shrovetide Fair.

[edit] Other uses

Franz Liszt used chords a tritone apart in his Malediction Concerto (Walser 1998, p.215).

Maurice Ravel uses this chord in his piano work Jeux D'eau to create flourishing, water-like sounds that characterize the piece.

Leonard Bernstein ends the popular musical West Side Story with a C Major chord in the upper voices, and gives the basses an F♯, which could be seen to imply the Petrushka chord.

John Williams uses it in various parts of his score for the Star Wars Trilogy, an example being the frequent use of major triads in the brass in chromatic intervals of a minor third (two minor thirds forming a tritone) such as G major and D flat major.