ABSTRACT
This lesson plan discusses the use of the whole-tone scale in Tosca. In the opening bars of the opera, incomplete whole-tone and chromatic elements combine in a leitmotif that is juxtaposed with an ensuing diatonic passage. When the leitmotif returns, its whole-tone scale is completed and integrated into a diatonic context. The notion of simultaneous scales – chromatic foreground, whole-tone middleground, and diatonic background – is offered as a way to describe the integration of these three scalar types. Use of these passages as an introduction to integer notation and equal divisions of the octave is also suggested.
