authentic cadence

authentic cadence
Name	Authentic cadence
Othernames	Perfect cadence, Imperfect cadence
Type	Harmonic progression
Related	Dominant, Tonic, V–I progression
Typical era	Common practice period, Baroque, Classical, Romantic

authentic cadence An authentic cadence is a tonal harmonic progression that establishes closure by moving from the dominant area to the tonic. It functions as a principal point of harmonic resolution in Western art music and appears frequently across genres from Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel to Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Frédéric Chopin. Performers, theorists, and composers in institutions such as the Conservatoire de Paris, Juilliard School, Royal College of Music, and Curtis Institute of Music study its voice-leading conventions and expressive uses.

Definition and Characteristics

An authentic cadence typically consists of a dominant harmony (V or V7) moving to a tonic harmony (I or i) and produces a sense of finality familiar in the works of Arcangelo Corelli, Domenico Scarlatti, Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. Characteristics include resolution of the leading tone to the tonic, root motion from V to I, and conventional soprano placement of the tonic or third, as in many passages by Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Gioachino Rossini, and Richard Wagner. In tonal analysis developed by theorists like Heinrich Schenker, Rudolph Reti, Allen Forte, Oswald Jonas, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov the cadence is described by its harmonic function and voice-leading tendencies.

Harmonic Function and Voice Leading

Functionally, the dominant supplies tension through the leading tone and fifth-degree pedal that resolves to the tonic, a mechanism exploited by composers such as Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Henry Purcell, Giuseppe Verdi, and Gustav Mahler. Voice-leading rules—such as resolving the leading tone inward or outward to the tonic and preparing dissonances by common tones—are explicit in pedagogues like Tobias Matthay, Simon Sechter, Gottfried Weber, Arnold Schoenberg, and Hermann Scherchen. In the practice of continuo players and orchestrators from the Venice Conservatory tradition through the Vienna Philharmonic repertoire, V7–I progressions often include doubling conventions and non-chord tones (neighbor tones, suspensions) that affect the cadence’s perceived strength, observable in scores by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Niccolò Paganini, Felix Mendelssohn, Anton Bruckner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Variants and Types

Analysts and textbooks distinguish types such as the perfect authentic cadence and imperfect authentic cadence, as described by authors like Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (Wq), Johann Joachim Quantz, Émile Durand, Sebastian Virdung, and Terry Teachout. Variants include V–I, V7–I, cadential 6–4 resolved to V, and deceptive cadences (V–vi or V–VI) found in the works of Franz Liszt, Giacomo Puccini, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, and Claude Debussy. Other related formulas—plagal cadences (IV–I) and half cadences (ending on V)—contrast with authentic cadences in the music of Heinrich Schütz, Alessandro Scarlatti, Georges Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Maurice Ravel.

Historical Development and Usage

The authentic cadence evolved from modal cadential formulae of the medieval and Renaissance eras into the functional tonal closures codified in the Baroque and Classical periods. Early manifestations appear in works by Guido of Arezzo, Perotin, Josquin des Prez, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, while Baroque codification is evident in compositions by Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, Arcangelo Corelli, and Henry Purcell. The Classical aesthetic—articulated by Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven—standardized the V–I movement, which Romantic and 20th-century composers such as Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and Dmitri Shostakovich both utilized and subverted for expressive effect.

Examples and Analysis in Repertoire

Canonical examples include final measures of movements by Johann Sebastian Bach (chorales and preludes), cadential progressions in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart piano sonatas and operas, and the closing bars of many Ludwig van Beethoven symphonic movements. Schenkerian analyses of works by Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, and Johannes Brahms trace prolongations that culminate in authentic cadences. In popular and film music, composers such as John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Ennio Morricone, Bernard Herrmann, and Danny Elfman employ authentic cadences to signal resolution, while jazz standards interpreted by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Bill Evans often modify voice-leading to create extended or evaded cadences.

Pedagogical and Analytical Applications

Music educators at institutions like Royal Academy of Music, Eastman School of Music, Peabody Institute, and Yale School of Music teach authentic cadences as core components of harmony and counterpoint curricula, relying on exercises from treatises by Rameau, Fux, Tobias Matthay, Tailleferre, and Arnold Schoenberg. Analytical methods—Roman numeral analysis, Schenkerian reduction, set-theory adaptations, and transformational theory employed by scholars such as Gustav Mahler scholars, Allen Forte, David Lewin, Fred Lerdahl, and John Rahn—use cadential behavior to identify tonal centers, phrase boundaries, and prolongation. In composition studios at Berklee College of Music, Mannes School of Music, and conservatories worldwide, cadential choices remain fundamental to style imitation, modulation planning, and expressive closure.

Category:Musical terminology