page_title: Neapolitan chord
section_title: Baroque period
hierarchical_section_title: Neapolitan chord / In classical music / Baroque period
caption_attribution_description: English: Vivaldi Summer, 1st movement, bars 26-30
context_page_description: In music theory, a Neapolitan chord is a major chord built on the lowered second scale degree. In Schenkerian analysis, it is known as a Phrygian II, since in minor scales the chord is built on the notes of the corresponding Phrygian mode.
  Although it is sometimes indicated by an "N" rather than a "♭II", some analysts prefer the latter because it indicates the relation of this chord to the supertonic. The Neapolitan chord does not fall into the categories of mixture or tonicization. Moreover, even Schenkerians like Carl Schachter do not consider this chord as a sign for a shift to the Phrygian mode. Therefore, like the augmented sixth chords it should be assigned to a separate category of chromatic alteration.
  The Neapolitan most commonly occurs in first inversion so that it is notated either as ♭II⁶ or N⁶ and normally referred to as a Neapolitan sixth chord. In C major or C minor, for example, a Neapolitan sixth chord in first inversion contains an interval of a minor sixth between F and D♭.
context_section_description: In his oratorio Jephte, Giacomo Carissimi portrays the grief-stricken tears ("lachrimate") of Jephtha’s daughter and her companions at the prospect of her brutal fate.  According to Richard Taruskin, "The daughter’s lament… makes especially affective use of the ‘Phrygian’ lowered second degree at cadences, producing what would later be called the Neapolitan (or ‘Neapolitan sixth) harmony." (B♭ in the key of A minor).
  
  In his opera King Arthur, Henry Purcell features the chord (D♭ in the key of C minor) among a range of "daring chromatic harmonies" and "strange sliding semitones" to evoke the sensation of intense cold in Act 3 Scene 2, when the spirit of Winter, the awe-inspiring "Cold Genius" is aroused from its slumbers. 
  In contrast to Purcell, the opening movement of "Summer" from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, "a four-note descent transformed by Neapolitan-sixth harmony" enhances the sensation of weariness and languor under the hot sun (A♭ in the key of G minor). As the sonnet accompanying the music puts it:
  Sotto dura Staggion dal Sole accesa 
  
  Langue l' huom, langue 'l gregge, ed arde il Pino;
  (Under a hard season, fired up by the sun 
  
  Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine.)
  Paul Everett describes the above passage as "a set of disarmingly 'slow' gestures, metrically dislocated, that must represent the lethargy of the anxious man as much as the oppressive heat of an airless day."
  
  In J.S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion, No. 19, the episode conveying Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane, the Neapolitan chord (G♭ in the key of F minor) is used on the word "Plagen" (torments) in the chorale harmonization sung by the chorus:
  According to John Eliot Gardiner, "The answering soft-voiced chorus… imbues [the music] with a mysterious quality, almost as though a muted drama is taking place at a distance from the main action – Christ’s ‘Agony in the Garden’ and his acceptance of his role as Saviour."
caption: The first movement ("Summer") from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, mm. 26–30
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