The Chromatic False Relation: A Compositional Device and Diegetic Trope in the English Renaissance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33871/vortex.2025.13.9621Keywords:
False relation, Cross relation, English clash, English cadence, Musica poeticaAbstract
Theorists define false relation as an incongruent pair of pitches occurring in different voices that imply a relationship of chromatic alteration. It is the lack of relationship between these pitches, however, that affords its name. Theorists have alternatively referred to this compositional device as cross relations (simultaneous/non-simultaneous), non-harmonic relationships, and “English clash”. This article addresses the terminological inconsistencies and relative vagueness of definition regarding this compositional device. Although theoretically rendered today, the term has a rhetorical/diegetic significance within the musica poetica tradition (parrhesia; licentia), according to documentation from the Cinquecento/Seicento. In identifying fundamental differences between variants of the chromatic false relation that these terms collectively denote in dialogue with regular modulations, this article makes a conceptual distinction between modes of false relations stemming from novel analytical terminology: synchronous/asynchronous, direct/indirect, etc. The article concludes with explanatory analyses of William Byrd’s Ne irascaris domine and Orlando Gibbons’s The Silver Swanne.
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