Plagal Harmony as Other: Asymmetrical Dualism and Instrumental Music by Brahms

Abstract

The late 19th-century dualism of Hugo Riemann exemplifies a widely recognized tendency in Western cultures to think in binary pairs. In recent theoretical writing the primary dualism between major and minor modes has provoked little or no controversy. But the attendant opposition between, respectively, authentic and plagal harmonic systems has not found widespread acceptance, because theorists have been unwilling to grant the latter equal status to the former. An alternative is to accept the validity of the two systems and at the same time to recognize the inequality that comes with any binary pair, thus acknowledging the