Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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RESOLUTION
RESOLUTION 69
having the discordant note pass to another
position in the same harmony before changing,
and allowing another part to supply the contiguous
note ; as in Ex. 5 from one of Mozart's
Fantasias in C minor.
Ex. 5.
Ex.
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Some theorists hold that the passage of the
ninth to the third— as Dl> to E in Ex. 5a (where
the root C does not appear)—is sufficient to constitute
resolution.
That such a form of resolution
is very common is obvious from theorists
having noticed it, but it ought to be understood
that the mere change of position of the notes of
a discord is not sufficient to constitute resolution
unless a real change of harmony is implied
by the elimination of the discordant note ; or
unless the change of position leads to fresh
harmony, and thereby satisfies the conditions
of intelligible connection with the discord.
A much more unusual and remarkable resolution
is such as appears at the end of the first
movement of Beethoven's F minor Quartet as
follows
Ex. 6.
where the chord of the Dominant seventh contracts
into the mere single note which it represents,
and that proceeds to the note only of the
Tonic ; so that no actual haiinony is heard in
the movementafter the seventh has been sounded.
An example of treatment of an inversion of the
major ninth of the Dominant, which is as unusual,
is the following from Beethoven's last
Quartet, in F, op. 135 :
Ex. 7.
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There remain to be noted a few typical devices
by which resolutions are either varied or elaborated.
One which was more common in early
stages of harmonic music than at the present
day was the use of representative progressions,
which were, in fact, the outline of chords which
would have supplied the complete succession of
parts if they had been filled in. The following
is a remarkable example from the Sarabande of
J. S. Bach's Partita in Bb :
Ex. 8. *^ " — ^
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which might be interpreted as follows :
Ex. 9.
Another device which came early into use, and
was in great favour with Bach and his sons and
their contemporaries, and is yet an ever-fruitful
source of variety, is that of interpolating notes
in the part which has what is called the discordant
note, between its sounding and its final
resolution, and either passing direct to the note
which relieves the dissonance from the digi-ession,
or touching the dissonant note slightly again at
the end of it. The simplest form of this device
was the leap from a suspended note to another
note belonging to the same harmony, and then
back to the note which supplies the resolution,
as in Ex. 10 ;
and this form was extremely
common iu quite the early times of polyphonic
music.
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Ex. 10.
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But much more elaborate forms of a similar
nature were made use of later. An example
from J. S. Bach will be found in vol. i. p. 3146
of this Dictionary ; the following example, from
a Fantasia by Emanuel Bach, illustrates the
same point somewhat remarkably, and serves
also as an instance of enharmonic resolution :
Ex. 11.