The Waldstein Gesture and the Tetradic Space
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33871/vortex.2026.14.11073Keywords:
Waldstein Gesture, Rhetorical Functional Gestures, Schema Theory, Tetradic Space, Harmony in Popular MusicAbstract
This article is based on the concept of rhetorical functional gestures (Almada, 2025), associated with the Schema Theory and the harmonic practice of popular music. This framework provides the means for the descriptions of the Waldstein gesture, whose designation derives from its model, extracted from the opening bars of Beethoven's piano sonata, Op. 53. After identifying its constructive characteristics and making the necessary adaptations to the peculiar conditions of the popular musical repertoire, the Waldstein gesture is plotted as a directed graph in Tetradic Space, a chordal space specially designed for the identification and qualification of harmonic relationships between asymmetrical seventh chords. Excerpts from five pieces from the popular musical repertoire that employ the aforementioned gesture are analyzed in the final section of the article, followed by a comparative discussion, which allows us to identify the characteristic elements of such a compositional strategy.
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