{{Short description|Type of melody or melodic fragment}} {{for|Chromatic tetrachord|Chromatic genus}} thumb|Chromatic run from Chopin's Prelude in C Minor, mm.5-6.<ref>Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Nadine Saker. 2009. ''Music in Theory and Practice'', p.216. Eighth edition. 2 vols. + 2 CD sound discs. Boston: McGraw-Hill. {{ISBN|978-0-07-310188-0}}.</ref> {{audio|Chopin- Prelude in C Minor mm.5-6 chromatic run.mid|Play}}
In music theory, a '''chromatic fourth''', or '''''passus duriusculus''''',<ref name="Monelle">Monelle, Raymond (2000). ''The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays'', p.73. {{ISBN|978-0-691-05716-3}}.</ref> is a melody or melodic fragment spanning a perfect fourth with all or almost all chromatic intervals filled in (chromatic line). The quintessential example is in D minor with the tonic and dominant notes as boundaries:
<score lang="lilypond" vorbis="1"> \relative c{ \new Staff \with {\remove "Time_signature_engraver" \clef bass } \time 11/4 \key d \minor
d cis c b bes a bes b c cis d } </score>
The chromatic fourth was first used in the madrigals of the 16th century.{{citation needed|date=June 2011}} The Latin term itself—"harsh" or "difficult" (''duriusculus'') "step" or "passage" (''passus'')—originates in Christoph Bernhard's 17th-century ''Tractatus compositionis augmentatus'' (1648–49), where it appears to refer to repeated melodic motion by semitone creating consecutive semitones.<ref name="Monelle"/> The term may also relate to the ''pianto'' associated with weeping.<ref name="Monelle"/> In the Baroque, Johann Sebastian Bach used it in his choral as well as his instrumental music, in the ''Well-Tempered Clavier'', for example (the chromatic fourth is indicated by the red notes):
<score lang="lilypond" vorbis="1"> \relative c'{ \key d \minor
\times 2/3 {[d16 e f]} \times 2/3 {[g f e]} \times 2/3 {[f g a]} \times 2/3 {[bes a g]} a8 \override NoteHead.color = #red d cis c b bes a \override NoteHead.color = #black g ~ g f e a } </score>
[[File:Vivaldi lament bass from RV 631, Aria No. 2.png|thumb|Lament bass from Vivaldi's motet ''"O qui coeli terraeque serenitas"'' RV 631, Aria No. 2<ref>Williams, Peter (1998). ''The Chromatic Fourth: During Four Centuries of Music'', p.69. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-816563-3}}.</ref>
In operas of the Baroque and Classical, the chromatic fourth was often used in the bass and for woeful arias, often being called a "lament bass". In the penultimate pages of the first movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the chromatic fourth appears in the cellos and basses.
{{audio|Vivaldi lament bass from RV 631, Aria No. 2.mid|Play}}.]]
This does not mean that the chromatic fourth was always used in a sorrowful or foreboding way, or that the boundaries should always be the tonic and dominant notes. One counterexample comes from the Minuet of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's String Quartet in G major, K. 387 (the chromatic fourths are conveniently bracketed by the slurs and set apart with note-to-note dynamics changes):
<score lang="lilypond" vorbis="1"> \relative c'{ \key g \major \time 3/4 \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"violin"
\p fis'( d) r d( b) r b( c \f cis \p d \f dis \p e) \f a,( \p bes \f b \p c \f cis \p d \f) } </score>
==Musical works using the chromatic fourth or ''passus duriusculus''== thumb|In the organ chorale prelude BWV 614, there are chromatic fourths in the three accompanying voices *Henry Purcell, "Dido's Lament"<ref name="Monelle"/> * Robert de Visée, Suite in C minor : Sarabande *J. S. Bach, Mass in B minor, Crucifixus, also BWV 12, "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" *J. S. Bach, BWV 78: "Jesu, der du meine Seele" *J. S. Bach, BWV 150: "Nach Dir, Herr, verlanget mich" (in the first choral, and a reverse, ''whole note upwards'' melody in the final Chaconne) *J. S. Bach, Orgelbüchlein, BWV 614: "Das Alte Jahr vergangen ist" (in the three accompanying voices) {{Audio|BWV614-organ.mid|play}} *J. S. Bach, Invention No. 9 in F minor, BWV 795 (second subject) *J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C-sharp minor, BWV 849, second voice in bar 69, soprano in bar 71 *J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 855, fugue subject *J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 889, Prelude subject *J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548, the widening chromatic character of the fugue subject lends the work the subtitle "The Wedge". *J. S. Bach, Toccata in E minor, BWV 914, fugue subject *W. A. Mozart, K. 594: "Stück für ein Orgelwerk in einer Uhr" *Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9, ending of first movement *Frédéric Chopin, No. 20 from 24 Preludes, Op. 28 *Hector Berlioz, Requiem, Op. 5 *César Franck, Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Chromaticism}}
Category:Chromaticism Category:Music semiology Category:Music theory