Songs or pieces that never hit the tonic?

Besides the famous example of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde Prelude which never resolves to the tonic (and people are still arguing about what key it's actually in), do you know any songs or pieces that delay resolving to or never resolve to the tonic?  Pop songs are okay too!  And in fact, my first example is a pop song:  Kendrick Lamar's "All the Stars" featuring Sza.

The chords are as follows in Eb major:

IV ii IV ii

vi iii vi V

I love how this track is orchestrated though.  The smooth and luscious string voicings are chef's kiss 😘.

Yo Peter,

In fact one example I can think is a piece I hopefully will pick up again in the future. It’s the fourth and final of my Music In the Dark which is a set of four piano pieces based on Chinese poet Li Shangyin’s poem Grand Zither. I did write something on it and I will have the whole final piece in C# minor but never on it, which means that in every cadence there won’t be any i chord,and it will end on a V at the end.

7 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

pieces that delay resolving to or never resolve to the tonic?

For this, Beethoven did delay resolving the tonic in the first movement of his op.101. The tonic chord never appears in a cadence until at the very end. The recording below is again played by lovely Levit:

The slow movement in Bee’s op.132 is interesting since he pretends using the Lydian mode but in fact the piece for me is entirely in C major, only at the end he pretends it’s in F Lydian LoL!

Henry

I found another song that never hits the tonic (probably one among many on this album - one of my favorite albums of all time by Twenty-One Pilots "Blurryface" that I can easily listen to from beginning to end even though their songs are mostly just 4-chord patterns repeated throughout the whole song just like this one:  Hometown).

The chords are as follows:

V ii IV vi (in F major)

and this 4-chord pattern repeats throughout the whole song and despite that - there's still a lot of contrast created by many different elements of the music.

8 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

even though their songs are mostly just 4-chord patterns repeated throughout the whole song

Just like this "famous" guy?

If I remember, the first movement of Beethoven's 4th Symphony doesn't get to the tonic until somewhere around bar 34. (I've mislaid the score so I can't check but it is my favourite of his symphonies.) 

.Other than that some of Peter Mennin's symphonic work defies tonic thanks to his use of the Locrian mode.

11 hours ago, Quinn said:

Other than that some of Peter Mennin's symphonic work defies tonic thanks to his use of the Locrian mode.

Which symphony of his would you recommend?  I listened to his Symphony no. 3 and didn't hear much locrian nor avoidance of the tonic.

It's some time since I spent time with his symphonies unfortunately only on record, but if I recall it was either his 5th or 6th. Probably the "Grave", 2nd movement of the 6th, IIRC, that seemed to avoid resolution wherever it could. I have the study score for this (long out of print) and seemed to remember aided by hints in programme notes somewhere his use of this mode. I may be wrong though. I'll try to find time to check. The problems is, so far as formal structure goes, I get seriously influenced by his work.

The movement mentioned was the inspiration for that locrian symphony I wrote - at least some of it was submitted here.

.

Finally remember one! How can I forget this?! :

The opening lied is in F sharp minor but never have one tonic chord on it!!!

I found another pop song that never hits the tonic!  It's very well known and cycles through the same four chords throughout the whole song LoL!  I also noticed that a lot of these songs that I'm posting have very weak harmonic motion.

The chords are as follows:

ii  |  IV  |  vi  |  V  |  (in A major)

Ultimate Guitar Tab.com claims that this song is in B minor because it starts on the B minor chord - but if so then the song would be considered in Dorian mode - but to me it doesn't sound like it's in Dorian - it sounds like the D major chord in the second bar is definitely a sub-dominant.

I remembered about another VGM track that delays hitting the tonic for quite some time!  It's the "Secret of the Forest" track from Chrono Trigger:

The harmony alternates between the following chords till 1:17 (in Bb minor)

bVI | v | bVI | v |

At 1:17 the harmony is like so:

iv | bII | i | i |

iv | bII | ii | v |

||: i | ♮vi | iv | v :||

bIII ii7 | vsus4 V |

and then it repeats back to the beginning.  Enjoy!

"Nature's Way" by Christopher Cross:

The song starts out on A major.. the chords are as follows:
(Verse) (Chorus)
||: A maj | G#7sus4 G#7 :||: C#m A maj B maj :|| E maj B maj | A maj || (repeat)

then in the middle there's a modulation in the chorus:
(Verse and guitar solo) (Chorus)
||: A maj | G#7sus4 G#7 :||: Em C maj D maj :|| G maj D maj | C maj ||
||: C maj | B7sus4 B7 :||: Em C maj D maj :||: G maj D maj | C maj :||

The song ends on a D major chord. I posted this song because of it's ambiguous tonality. The song starts on an A major chord which sounds temporarily as if it could be the tonic chord. But soon enough it turns out to be a bVI chord in a bVI, V7sus4, V7, i progression (C# minor being the key here). But then that is immediately contradicted by E maj, B maj and A maj which in isolation sound like they could be the I, V and IV chords in E major. Finally, there's a modulation after the guitar solo to E minor, emphasizing the i, bVI and bVII (a common trope in rock music and in VGM often referred to as the "Mario Cadence") . The whole pattern of chords is now transposed up a minor 3rd. So the temporary modulation into the relative major is now targeting G major. The song ends on a D major chord, leaving many unanswered questions about its tonality. First off, most of the chords in the progression are major chords. But if you follow the roman numeral analysis, the tonic could be considered to be minor (either C# minor or E minor after the modulation in the middle of the guitar solo). This all just serves to underline the songs harmonic ambiguity. What key do you think it's in?

I agree the key of the song should be C# minor modulates to E minor with heavy reliance on deceptive cadence. Maybe the songwriter wants to signify the peace represented by the VI chord is full of undercurrent of i.

Henry

In a sense Chopin's Ballade no.2 does the same thing, although Chopin goes even one step forward by destroying the false repose of F major all along with the cruel but real tragic A minor ending.