Elektra (opera) - Motives and Chords

Motives and Chords

The characters in Elektra are famously characterized in the music through leitmotifs or chords including the Elektra chord. Klytaemnestra, in contrast to Agamemnon's clearly diatonic minor triad motif, is characterized by a bitonal six note collection most often represented as a pair of two minor chords a tritone apart, typically on B and F, rather than simultaneously.

Agamemnon is depicted through a triadic motive:

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