Playable BooksREADING EDITIONS
Rimsky-Korsakov, Practical Manual of Harmony in English

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov · section 29 of 96

The Triad of the Second Degree in the Major Mode

Read and hear this section in the playable edition →

§ 29. a) This chord, which is used only in the major mode, is placed after the tonic chord or its first inversion, and also after the triads of the fourth and sixth degrees. (See below.)

(*) It may rather be regarded as a dissonant chord.

As its continuation it requires the triad of the fifth degree, to which it is connected melodically, or the first inversion of that triad:

Four progressions in C major, each leading through the II triad (connected melodically) to V or V6, then to I
Fig. 103 · See it in the reader

The harmonic connection of this chord with the chord of the fifth degree in root position is not a happy one, because of the succession of two major thirds:

BAD · GOOD — major 3rd · major 3rd · minor 6th · minor 6th: II to V with the common tone held; bad when tenor and alto form two successive major thirds, good wh
Fig. 104 · See it in the reader

REMARK. — The triad of the second degree in the major mode is sometimes placed, in the cadences of chorales, before the sixth chord of the first degree.

Two chorale-cadence progressions in C major: II triad, I6, V
Fig. 105 · See it in the reader