TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

In these two pieces of music, the theme is made up of a higher, unchanging part (C-D flat) and one (or two) lower, moving parts. At the beginning of “Humanity Part I,” the lower lines appear to follow from afar the same schema as “Humanity Part II,” with the bassoon nevertheless adding notes outside the F minor scale, giving the music a dissonant feel. This idea of harmonic indistinctness is also present in the two pieces: in bars 17-18 of “Humanity Part II” and bars 8-9 of “Humanity Part I” we hear the major third of the scale (A) and then the minor sixth (D flat): are we in F minor or major?