Editing Tone cluster (section)

===Before the 1900s===
The earliest example of tone clusters in a Western music composition thus far identified is in the Allegro movement of [[Heinrich Biber]]'s ''[[Battalia à 10]]'' (1673) for string ensemble, which calls for several diatonic clusters.<ref>"Earliest Usages: 1. Pitch" in {{cite web|author=Byrd, Donald|url=http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm|title=Extremes of Conventional Music Notation|publisher=Indiana University, School of Informatics (website material based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation)|date=2010-05-12|access-date=2011-08-29|archive-date=2010-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> An orchestral diatonic cluster, containing all the notes of the [[harmonic minor scale]], occurs also in the representation of chaos in the opening of [[Jean-Féry Rebel]]'s 1737–38 ballet ''[[Les Élémens (Rebel)|Les Élémens]]''.<ref>Henck (2004), pp. 52–54.</ref>
[[File:Rebel, les Elemens, opening 01.wav|thumb|Rebel, ''Les Élemens'', opening]]
[[File:Rebel, les Elemens, opening 02.png|thumb|center|500px|Rebel, ''Les Élemens'', [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LduVCPkshHw opening]]]
From the next century-and-a-half, a few more examples have been identified, mostly no more than a fleeting instance of the form, for example in the opening of [[J.S. Bach]]'s Cantata ''[[O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort]]'', [[BWV]] 60 [[File:Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening 01.wav|thumb|Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening]] [[File:Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV60 opening.png|thumb|center|500px|Bach, ̊O ewigkeit du donnerwort' BWV 60]] or in the concluding two bars of the "Loure" from the same composer's French Suite No. 5, BWV 816:
[[File:Loure from Bach French Suite No 5, concluding bars.wav|thumb|Loure from Bach's French Suite No. 5, concluding bars]]
[[File:Loure from Bach, French Suite No 5, concluding bars.png|thumb|center|500px|Loure from Bach, French Suite No. 5, concluding bars]]
or the collisions that result from the interaction of multiple lines "locked together in [[Nonchord tone#Suspension|suspensions]]"<ref>David, H. T. (1945, p. 138) ''J.S.Bach's Musical Offering''. New York, Schirmer</ref> in Bach's ''[[The Musical Offering]]'':
[[File:Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering bars 29-31.wav|thumb|Ricercar a 6 from ''The Musical Offering'' bars 29–31]]
[[File:J.S.Bach, Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering bars 29-31.png|thumb|center|500px|J. S. Bach, Ricercar a 6 from ''The Musical Offering'' bars 29–31]]

In the keyboard sonatas of [[Domenico Scarlatti]] (1685–1757), we find a more daring and idiosyncratic use of tone clusters. In the following passage from the late 1740s, Scarlatti builds the dissonances over several bars:
[[File:Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143-168.wav|thumb|Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143–168]]
[[File:Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143-168.png|thumb|center|500px|Scarlatti Keyboard Sonata K119 bars 143–168]]

Ralph Kirkpatrick says that these chords "are not clusters in the sense that they are arbitrary blobs of dissonance, nor are they necessarily haphazard fillings up of diatonic intervals or simultaneous soundings of neighboring tones; they are logical expressions of Scarlatti's harmonic language and organic manifestations of his tonal structure."<ref>Kirkpatrick (1953), p. 231.</ref> Frederick Neumann describes Sonata K175 (1750s) as "full of Scarlatti's famous tone clusters".<ref>Neumann (1983), pp. 353–354.</ref> During this era, as well, several French programmatic compositions for the harpsichord or piano represent cannon fire with clusters: works by François Dandrieu (''Les Caractères de la guerre'', 1724), [[Michel Corrette]] (''La Victoire d'un combat naval, remportée par une frégate contre plusieurs corsaires réunis'', 1780), [[Claude-Bénigne Balbastre]] (''March des Marseillois'', 1793), Pierre Antoine César (''La Battaille de Gemmap, ou la prise de Mons'', {{circa}} 1794), Bernard Viguerie (''La Bataille de Maringo, pièce militaire et hitorique'', for piano trio, 1800), and [[Jacques-Marie Beauvarlet-Charpentier]] (''Battaille d'Austerlitz'', 1805).<ref>Henck (2004), pp. 32–40.</ref>

A dramatic use of a "virtual" tone cluster can be found in [[Franz Schubert]]'s song "[[Erlkönig (Schubert)|Erlkönig]]" (1815–21). Here, a terrified child calls out to his father when he sees an apparition of the sinister Erl King. The dissonant voicing of the dominant minor [[ninth chord]] used here (C<sup>7{{music|flat}}9</sup>) is particularly effective in heightening the drama and sense of threat.
[[File:From Schubert, "Erlkonig".wav|thumb|From Schubert's "Erlkönig"]]
[[File:Erlking - my father.png|center|thumb|500px|Extract from Schubert's "Erlkönig"]]
Writing about this passage, [[Richard Taruskin]] remarked on the "unprecedented ... level of dissonance at the boy's outcries. ... The voice has the ninth, pitched above, and the left hand has the seventh, pitched below. The result is a virtual 'tone cluster' ... the harmonic logic of these progressions, within the rules of composition Schubert was taught, can certainly be demonstrated. That logic, however, is not what appeals so strongly to the listener's imagination; rather it is the calculated impression (or illusion) of wild abandon."<ref>[[Richard Taruskin|Taruskin, R.]] (2010) ''The Oxford History of Western Music'', Volume 4, p. 149. ''Music in the Nineteenth Century'', Oxford University Press.</ref>

The concluding Arietta from [[Beethoven]]’s last [[Piano Sonata No. 32 (Beethoven)|Piano Sonata No. 32]], Op. 111 features a passage which, according to [[Martin Cooper (musicologist)|Martin Cooper]] “gives a momentary touch of blurredness by the repeated cluster of fourths.” <ref>Cooper, M.,  ''Beethoven, the Last Decade''. Oxford University Press.</ref> [[File:Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96-7.wav|thumb|Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96–97]][[File:Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96-7.png|thumb|center|500px|Beethoven arietta from Piano Sonata 32, bars 96–97]]

The next known compositions after Charpentier's to feature tone clusters are [[Charles-Valentin Alkan]]'s "Une fusée" (A Rocket) Op. 55, published in 1859, and his "Les Diablotins" (The Imps), a miniature from the set of 49 ''[[Esquisses (Alkan)|Esquisses]]'' (sketches) for solo piano, published in 1861.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} [[File:Diablotins.jpg|thumb|center|upright=3.00|Extract from Alkan's ''Les diablotins'', Op. 63, no. 45, featuring tone clusters[[File:Diablotins.mid]]]]

There is also the solo piano piece ''Battle of Manassas'', written in 1861 by [[Blind Tom Wiggins|"Blind Tom" Bethune]] and published in 1866. The score instructs the pianist to represent cannon fire at various points by striking "with the flat of the hand, as many notes as possible, and with as much force as possible, at the bass of the piano."<ref>Quoted in Altman (2004), p. 47.</ref> In 1887, [[Giuseppe Verdi]] became the first notable composer in the Western tradition to write an unmistakable chromatic cluster: the storm music with which ''[[Otello]]'' opens includes an organ cluster (C, C{{music|sharp}}, D) that also has the longest notated duration of any scored musical texture known.<ref>Kimbell (1991), p. 606; "Earliest Usages: 1. Pitch" and "Duration and Rhythm: 2. Longest notated duration, including ties" in [http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm Extremes of Conventional Music Notation] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100308113537/http://www.informatics.indiana.edu/donbyrd/CMNExtremes.htm |date=2010-03-08 }}.</ref> The choral finale of [[Gustav Mahler]]'s [[Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)|Symphony No. 2]] features a tone cluster of great poignancy arising naturally out of [[voice leading]] to the words "wird, der dich rief, dir geben":
[[File:Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4-10.wav|thumb|Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4–10]]
[[File:Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4-10.png|thumb|center|600px|Mahler Symphony 2 finale Fig 32, bars 4–10]]

Still, it was not before the second decade of the twentieth century that tone clusters assumed a recognized place in Western classical music practice.