Deceptive cadence

What it means

In a deceptive cadence, the dominant does not lead to the expected tonic but to a different sonority, mostly to the tonic's relative on the sixth degree: D–Tp (V–VI). The listener expects the close, and it fails to occur. The cadence is thereby not cancelled but extended — the music must continue and make up the close later.

Musical use

The voice leading explains why the deceptive cadence works so convincingly. The leading tone rises as usual to the root, and the remaining upper voices behave largely as in the authentic cadence. Only the bass moves a step upward instead of a fifth downward. Since the tonic's relative shares two notes with the tonic, the continuation sounds related, but wrong. In four-part writing, the third is often doubled in the sonority on the sixth degree, to avoid parallels.

Its role in form is extension. A section running toward the close is opened up by a deceptive cadence; an extended repetition of the cadence follows, which then ends with the authentic close. The effect is an intensification: the second attempt weighs more heavily, because the first was denied.

Besides the sixth degree, other goal sonorities occur, for instance the subdominant with the third in the bass, or altered sonorities; but the turn to the sixth degree is the normal case.

The deceptive cadence is to be distinguished from the half cadence, which comes to rest on the dominant instead of continuing.

The most common form leads the dominant to the sixth degree.

Other names

Interrupted cadence is a synonymous designation, used above all in translations from English. The name emphasizes that the expected resolution into the tonic fails to occur; the German expression Trugschluss emphasizes the deception of the listener.

Performance practice

Shape the dominant before the deceptive cadence as though the close were coming — the surprise works only if the expectation was built up. Maintain the tension afterward and save the effect of closure for the following cadence.