How much are composers aware of the harmony structure they are using?

Question

I am mostly referring to composers writing complex music, for example, classic composers. In particular, I am referring to change of harmony, and change of key. Let's take for example a fugue for Bach, where the harmony is changing almost for every beat and there are very frequent modulations. How much are this modulations and change of chords "conscious" and how much they just follow the strongest melody line and naturally come out of them, thanks to the compose ear? When Bach or Mozart go to (let's say) I to [IV of IV] and [V of IV], when he is using a Napolean chord and so on... do they actually *know* they are doing that while composing? Do they actually *want* to do that? Or are they just chasing a sound that, from our analysis, resulted in being *that*? It is obvious that at least some of them are at least partially aware of this. Mozart's letters to his father show his awareness on what modulation to use for obtaining a specific effect. However, I wonder: is this always the case? Is it possible that Mozart was just "reading" what he naturally felt right? Meaning: maybe he was not aware that he had to do *that* modulation for obtaining *that* effect, but he tried it and it worked and then analysed it for referring to his father. And, this is only Mozart. We barely have any letter from Beethoven that talks about the structural harmony of his music (maybe *no* letter at all about this?).I am referring not only to great classical composers but also to *modern* composers. They don't need to be classical, but of course I am interested in cases with complex harmony and modulations, so pop songs, for example, won't do. I appreciate both personal experiences as composers or more detailed account from the literature of the past/present. **EDIT:** I am still mostly unsatisfied with the answers, and I think that my question needs clarification. When composing music, does a composer go like: "Uhm, here I should put the V chord in second inversion as is the thing that follows best the II chord" (I am making this up) or like "ah! This sounds very good in this position" [and only *after that* maybe analysing from a harmonic point of view]. Which one would they *mostly* use? **EDIT2:** This question is put on hold because "answers to this question will tend to be almost entirely based on opinions, rather than facts, references, or specific expertise". I think is unjustified. I am asking about the mental process of composers while they compose (referring to the most famous composers in order to assume their proficiency). Literature on this topic does not exist, apparently, *but it could*, either through the huge amount of letters that composer wrote during their lifetime, or through personal experience of living composers. I think is important to know whether this literature exists or not. If every composer uses a different composition style, then it would be good to know. From the answers, it seems that there is no consent about that. Some people believe that *of course* they are totally aware of the harmony, someone else says that they *may* be, maybe no. Some of this answers are unjustified and based on personal opinion. However, is totally possible to obtain an answer that is indeed based on facts: e.g. a big literature review on the letters of the great composers (or the first-hand experience of the less famous one), showing that things go mostly on one side or the other. Someone was writing a big answer on this. Why prevent potential factual answers? In order to avoid opinion based answer I would thus specify: If you answer, please specify if what you say is based on your personal experience as a composer or on some other documents.

Answer 1

I think it depends on the individual composer, but most trained classical composers are aware of the harmony they are using, and, if it's functional tonal harmony, they make conscious choices to use a particular chord for a particular effect. They are aware of their options for chords that function similarly, ex. a V7 chord vs a viio chord, a ii chord vs a IV chord, etc. and then decide amongst those for the more specific desired effect. Some more experienced composers will not need to be quite so mechanical in their approach, in that they will intuitively arrive at a specific chord, either when composing at a keyboard, or in their head/on paper, but they still know what they've done if they are asked/choose to analyze what they've done after the fact. In other words, they may not have to say to themselves, ah, I think I'll use the V/IV secondary dominant moving to IV, but simply just do it.

When you're talking about non-functional or non-tonal harmony, things can be somewhat different in terms of the process. Some composers think more of interval content of chords (e.g. stacked 4ths) or background pitch collection (e.g. whole tone scale) rather than of their function in a tonal context. Again, it's possible to consciously use these sorts of content, or to reach the point where they're used intuitively.

I hope that helps somewhat to clarify how composers approach the process.

My reply is based both on personal experience as a composer and in my studies of sketches, letters of important composers. It's also based on informal discussions with other composers about their process.

I would be happy to work with you if you're interested in taking lessons.

Cheers,

HowardF

Answer 2

Just to add a layer on Howard's answer each harmony has melodic implications and the study of counterpoint goes back to the days of the first polyphony. So if they are not primarily concerned with or aware of harmony they could be moving things along in an effort to explore the melodic material. I take this mainly from my study of Counterpoint by Kennan.