Conclusion (music)

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In music, the conclusion is the ending of a composition and may take the form of a coda or outro. Often, there are "altogether unexpected digressions just as a work is drawing to its close, followed by a return...to a consequently more emphatic confirmation of the structural relations implied in the body of the work." (Perle 1990)

[edit] Examples

• The slow movement of Bach's Brandeberg Concerto No. 2, where a "diminished-7th chord progression interrupts the final cadence.
• The slow movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, where "echoing afterthoughts" follow the initial statements of the first theme and only return expanded in the coda.
• Varese's Density 21.5, where partitioning of the chromatic scale into (two) whole tone scales provides the missing tritone of b implied in the previously exclusive partitioning by (three) diminished seventh chords.

[edit] Source

• Perle, George (1990). The Listening Composer. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06991-9.