North Coast Synthesis Ltd.

Styrian Sonata

Baroque suites are collections of dances - or at least, musical movements written in forms traditionally associated with specific dances, whether people are meant to actually dance to them or not - in a traditional sequence. After the prelude if there is one, the first dance is usually an Allemande, which is the French word meaning "German," because it was traditonally thought to be a dance from Germany.

Just slightly later in history, when people were composing symphonies instead of dance suites, the tradition arose for the first movement to be in a specific structural form called "sonata form" or even, sometimes, "first movement form." Here, I tried to write something that would sit on the fence as both an Allemande and a sonata movement.

The book is set in Styria, which is now part of Austria, but given that "Germany" is to some extent a more recent invention, I think it's reasonably within the geographic area associated with the Allemande dance form.

In accordance with the sonata form, this movement starts by introducing two themes or short melodies, in the closely related keys of C and G. Then it "explores" those themes in other keys, bringing out different feelings and aspects of them with different kinds of accompaniments, before finally bringing them both back into C (and thereby reconciling them with each other). I used the keys of G, Eb, and B as the "foreign" keys in between. Those are exactly the notes of the Eb augmented chord that I use to symbolize Carmilla herself thoughout the suite.

The Eb augmented chord is harmonically ambiguous: it consists of three notes equally spaced, four semitones apart, so that none of them can be exactly called the root, or contrariwise all of them can be called the root. Eb augmented, on an equally-tempered instrument like the modern piano, is really the same chord as G augmented, B augmented, and D# augmented, just "respelling" the notes.

Thus it's possible to pivot on such a chord: music can lead up to it in a way that makes it sound like a B chord, say, and then the music afterward can proceed on the assumption that that was actually an Eb chord, jumping into a different harmonic space without disturbing the listener too much.

I like the ambiguity of augmented chords as representing the ambiguous or liminal status of the vampire, and also her specific ability (described several times in the book) of moving suddenly from one place to another, including into and out of locked rooms, without apparently crossing the space in between.