[Listening extract audio not available in printed QP. Skeleton score in Insert.] Study the two melodic fragments shown below. Fragment A ascends. Fragment B...
Question 1 Report
[Listening extract audio not available in printed QP. Skeleton score in Insert.]
Study the two melodic fragments shown below.
Fragment A ascends. Fragment B contains the same notes in reverse order.
(a) What technique has been applied to create Fragment B? [1]
(b) What technique would result if the ascending intervals were changed to descending intervals of the same size? [1]
[Total: 2 marks]
Answer Details
(a) The technique applied to create Fragment B is retrograde. [1]
Retrograde means playing a melody backwards, reversing the order of the notes from last to first. In the score shown, Fragment A presents four ascending notes, while Fragment B presents the same four notes in reverse order (descending). This is a standard compositional technique used particularly in counterpoint and in serial (twelve-tone) music, where the retrograde of a tone row is one of the four standard transformations available to the composer.
(b) The technique that results from changing ascending intervals to descending intervals of the same size is inversion. [1]
Inversion (also called melodic inversion) mirrors a melody around a central pitch: every upward interval becomes a downward interval of the same size, and vice versa. If the original melody rises by a third and then by a step, the inverted version falls by a third and then by a step. Inversion preserves the intervallic content of the melody but reverses its contour. Combined with retrograde, it produces a fourth transformation called retrograde inversion. These four forms (original, retrograde, inversion, retrograde inversion) are the building blocks of serial composition.
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