Favorite Symphony by a 1-Symphony Composer

[karlhenning]

Interestingly enough, some of the most beautiful and profound music is in C major --- and by Schubert: Symph #9 and String Quintett.

I think we should find that of practically all the keys, really . . . .

[DavidW]

I think we should find that of practically all the keys, really . . . .

Quick name 5 masterpieces in A major!  Just kidding.

[Luke]

I think you are misreading me...

But Luke
(a) a different forum would have different results, for example on Talk Classical Mahler's 2nd reigns supreme

Whoever said that poll results on forums were scientific? You are right of course, but in that case, what you say applies to all polls, not just this one.

(b) Mozart's 41st is in C major, Brahms' 4th is in E minor, none of Haydn's London symphonies are even in D minor, Schubert's final symphony "the great" that he worked so hard on is in C major, Tchaikovsky's 6th is in B minor... need I go on?  I don't think you really found interesting with that key.

I wasn't suggesting that I had. You misread me. What I was suggesting was this - that if one was to order lists of most popular symphonies by key, or sort them by listener, or investigate some other method of measuring things statistically, one might observe interesting things; I was postulating just one possible such a thing. A few posts down from the one I'm quoting, someone mentions ex-member D minor - and there's an example of precisely what I mean. D minor, presumably, took that name because he feels an affinity for what on the surface of things (if all keys are much of a muchness) must be a statistically unlikely number of pieces in that key. One could therefore reasonably assume that there must be some other reason for his liking for these pieces, and that the reason might be that composing in D minor (the key) tends to lead composers to writing music in a certain affektive vein which D minor (the member) finds conducive. Or, what amounts to the same thing, that when wanting to write pieces in such a vein, composers may well tend to reach for D minor, perhaps just instinctively. Extrapolating to a larger level, we might find that if a list of favourite symphonies produced a statisitcally large number of D minor works, then perhaps (this is the same argument) there is something in the key which leads composers in a certain direction, and perhaps that direction is one that a large number of listeners rate. The whole subject of key associations and so on is intimately connected with this, and as I've said before, in other threads, it doesn't matter if the listener doesn't have the key association, and it doesn't matter if there are many exceptions to the 'rules' - composers tend to have a feeling for keys, which can come from all manner of places, but which filters into the music. There's a reason that Beethoven 5 is in C minor and 9 is in D minor, and its roots are in Beethoven's mind and his own conception of what those keys 'felt like' or 'meant' or whatever. The different tones of the two works are reflected in (not caused by) the key choices, and therefore those who prefer no. 9 to no. 5 may well be more likely to prefer the tone of many D minor works to that of many C minor ones.

NB I am not, in fact, making any particular claims for D minor as a 'superior' key; I only pulled it out as on obvious example. Similar cases could be made for other keys. But D minor is quite a striking phenomenon nevertheless.

(c) Correlation is not equal to causation.  Finding several masterpieces in a specific key doesn't mean that key has any special significance.

I think I answered that above.

[Florestan]

Luke, you raised an interesting subject: the psychology of the keys.

Are the different moods usually associated with particular keys just artificial cultural constructs or are they deeply ingrained in our psyche? I mean, are we culturally or naturally "programmed" to hear "profundity" in D minor and "gaiety" in A major? 

[Grazioso]

The abstract of an academic study on key-mood perceptions:

http://www.icmpc8.umn.edu/proceedings/ICMPC8/PDF/AUTHOR/MP040020.PDF

[Florestan]

http://www.icmpc8.umn.edu/proceedings/ICMPC8/PDF/AUTHOR/MP040020.PDF

One reason why the key-mood association myth persists to the present day is the tradition of associating sharp keys with bright and positive moods and flat keys with dark and negative moods, which has been perpetuated by some musical commentators over the past two hundred years

All right, but what's of interest is why did this very tradition arose in the first place? Why not making the inverse association?

[Luke]

All right, but what's of interest is why did this very tradition arose in the first place? Why not making the inverse association?

I love this topic, though discussion always tends to hover round the same arguments, and I always feel, when having them, that the really interesting, revealing questions - what made the composer choose the key he chose? what was happening in his head, what unspoken urges were there that pushed him in the direction of one key rather than another? - are ignored in favour of the rather functional ones - all keys are fundamentally the same in ET, and if you don't have perfect pitch you can't often tell them apart, so therefore key choice isn't interesting. As an answer, that seems to me wilfully to ignore an area which was probably of interest to the composer himself, and I never really understand it; it seems to be shutting off an area of discovery, which I find odd - it's almost as if, for some reason I can't grasp, some people are offended by the idea that something as irrational as key associations may exist in some form. I could go on about this subject, and probably will, though I don't really have time now and this will probably make me late for my next lesson!

To answer your question, some basic key associations arose because of a complex of musical facts, and then over the years other more subtle layers of associations gathered around these fundamental associations.

So, one basic fact is that in the pre ET days, the more distant (sharper or flatter keys) sounded more exotic and often more discordant, and the more extreme a key was, the more it tended to gather extreme associations

Another such fact, which pertains to pre ET music but even more so to post ET, is the idea that moving sharpwards through the keys is somehow equivalent to a kind of lifting, or an increase of tension - one can almost feel oneself lift, in fact, when music modulates to the dominant or further sharpwards. Likewise flatwards motion entails some kind of a depression, or a relaxation.

The result of this is that, for instance, sharper keys tended - and of course this is only a tendency, though one which can be illustrated by dozens of examples - to be used for music concerned with the heavenly - E major, the sharpest key commonly used in the baroque, is very often found to be a 'heavenly' key. And flat keys would either be concerned with more earthly concerns -  'peasant/pastoral' music in the case of F major (Beethoven's Pastoral, Vivaldi's Autumn...there's a tradition of these things) or, perhaps with more aristocratic or even voluptuous concepts (B flat and E flat often had aristocratic associations, A flat  and in later years D flat and G flat had more sensuous ones (see also what I say about Messiaen below)...) (please remember that these are not rules, not statements of even statistical fact, just feelings, urges, tendencies that, it seems, many composers followed; there are all manner of reasons why a piece might not follow these tendencies, and certainly I'm not saying that all composers felt these things anyway). OTOH very flat minor keys were more starkly tragic than the sharp minors - D minor that stern key of strife and endeavour, C minor heroic and funereal, F minor (the flattest minor in common use) often reserved for depictions of Hell.

Another basic fact is that composers may have their own, personal, illogical feelings about keys. Sometimes these feelings are related to the fact that the composer is synaesthetic, but certainly not always. Composers with 'typical keys' are very common - e.g. Janacek's were all in the very flat regions, so that there is a great deal of his music in the otherwise very rare keys of D flat minor and A flat minor; Tippett's seemed to be A flat; if I dare introduce my own name here, mine is G (even though the music I write is not common practice tonal)

With ET, and especially in the twentieth century, the more extreme keys became the ones which were more frequently used for the more extreme associations. I don't think it's a coincidence that two composers who were extremely concerned with the celestial (though in very different ways) did so almost exclusively in the sharpest keys - I'm talking of Messiaen and Scriabin. For Messiaen, the flatter keys are earthy, still, lustful, joyous - his Regard de l'esprit de joie (Vingt Regards) and his Joy in the Blood of Stars (Turangalila) movements - two very similar pieces in some ways - are rampant and lusty in their D flat major. Meanwhile the more celestial, chaste, heavenly moments of both pieces always tend to the sharpest keys, F# most prominently, and often very radiantly, purely used. Something similar happens with Scriabin, though his flatter keys are often very dark and demonic...

Another basic fact is that different instruments may be easier or sound better in certain keys. String instruments are easier in the sharp keys, especially those with plenty of open strings - D major, particularly, became a key of brilliance and joyousness partly because it's the best key for a violin section to play in if you want them to give that kind of sound. Wind instruments and brass tend to flatter reasons, which may be one reason is why much outdoors-y, fanfare-y, regal music is in the flatter keys. (again my reminder that I generalise)

As time wore on, other factors came into play. The keyboard, for instance, became the field on which so much music was composed, performed and visualised. C major, with its no sharps and flats, had had obvious connotations such as Neutrality, Science, Knowledge, Abstract Purity (op 111 Arietta...), Light (The Creation...), Intellectual play (the Jupiter Symphony...) but it also took on less high-flown associations - it was the key of piano technique and also the key in which most through-the-keys sets of piano music started (the 48, the Chopin Preludes, the Transcendental Etudes...)- and so we have slews of works from all periods in which C major is used in music which aims to emphasize the idea of the piano technique - the first of Debussy's Etudes, or the first of his Children's Corner, both very striking examples. When in the middle of the early Beethoven E major piano sonata the music wrenches suddenly to C major, the pianist is immediately called upon to play scales such as a piano student might play, for the first time in the work. They thus inject a new element into the piece, and its very possible that this element has its roots in the force of the key association - Beethoven took the piece into C, and the scales were the result (perhaps).

In the past, having these discussion, Sfz has often raised the points that a) many pieces do not conform to these associations and b) pieces are often performed or arranged in transposed forms which must by necessity negate their original key associations. In fact that same Beethoven sonata was transposed y the composer himself, into F, when he was arranging it for string quartet so that the cello's lowest string could be more usefully employed - that's an example I remember Sfz giving.

I don't deny any of these points, but I don't really think they alter the argument; I still think that one would probably find that more than statistically-predictable number of pieces are in keys which in some way conform to one or other association - and that, IMO, as I hope I've emphasized, is a very loose and open bunch of thoughts and ideas and connections - I'm really not talking about strict, limiting, rigid classifications here. What can't be argued, I think, is that a composer is faced with an immediate choice when he writes a piece, and that point is - where on the pitch plane does this feel comfortable, this music, which notes and which keys sit most easily with my gut feelings about the music. Undoubtedly at this inchoate, often subconscious phase, composers will tend to the notes which feel most 'right', and usually some kind of key association is at work there. The simple and frankly often rather inane associations of the Baroque are very fragmented, personalised, individual now, but they pertain in their own ways nevertheless - how else to explain Scriabin, Janacek, Messiaen, Tippet and all the others? As for the phenomenon of transposed pieces - of course. Once the music moves beyond the initial inchoate phase anything might happen. For practical reasons it could well be transposed, yes - but what I find interesting, personally, is that initial moment, that initial choice of key.

Arggh, that reads badly!!   

[DavidW]

The abstract of an academic study on key-mood perceptions:

http://www.icmpc8.umn.edu/proceedings/ICMPC8/PDF/AUTHOR/MP040020.PDF

That doesn't look remotely scientific.  If you tell them the key it simply reinforces whatever bias was there before.  Why not conduct a double blind test instead?  If the point was to see how they react *knowing the key* you might as well have just asked them.  What a waste of time.

[Florestan]

Luke,

That will take some time for me to absorb, musically illiterate as I am...  Great essay post as usual.

Bottom line, and technicalities aside, would you say that, at least in the Western frame of thought, there is a deep psychological basis, maybe innate, for associating a particular key with a particular mood? Or is it all a matter of cultural conditioning?

I'll give you an example: is it because of Mozart's String Quintet KV 516 that we generally and loosely associate G minor with sadness and resignation --- or was this key, from the earliest times, used to express such a mood?

[DavidW]

I don't associate KV 516 with sadness and resignation.

[abidoful]

I don't have time to read this all, but surely keys have had a "social message" ;
For example, when Robert Shumann rewieved Chopin's Piano Sonata in b flat minor he said something  like Chopins "choise of key isn't particularly known for its popularity". Perhaps it was Chopin's attitude of the "enfant terrible" manifested there, which clearly wasn't lost from Schumann.

[karlhenning]

. . . but surely keys have had a "social message"

Why?

[Florestan]

You may be reading too much into this comment.  What I think he is saying is that there are far fewer works written in B-flat Minor than B-flat Major.

OTOMH, only Tchaikovsky's First PC share this key.

[Luke]

You forgot Havergal Brian's 8th? I'm stunned and shocked! 

Re the Chopin - Schumann is correct, of course, there aren't and certainly weren't an enormous number of works written in B flat minor. All sorts of reasons for that. But key choice does not an enfant terrible make. Schumann isn't unkown for his excursions into these realms himself.

BTW, haven't time to try to answer your other post now (not that I have any more qualification to do so than anyone else here...) But I will try later if possible.

[jowcol]

I love this topic, though discussion always tends to hover round the same arguments, and I always feel, when having them, that the really interesting, revealing questions - what made the composer choose the key he chose? what was happening in his head, what unspoken urges were there that pushed him in the direction of one key rather than another? - are ignored in favour of the rather functional ones

Fascinating post.  The psychological "moods" of keys also segues to the notion of synesthesia and the association some composers have between colors and  keys.  I've always been intrigued by the fact that, although Scriabin and Rimsky Korsakov had taking the trouble to map out an association between keys and colors, their maps did not always agree, and there was a key that Rimsky could not "see".  Also interesting that Scriabin would see the same color for E and A#, as well as C and F#.  Although I've heard some suggest the ideas that colors, like pitch are distinguished by frequency, and this may explain it, that theory would not explain how these to differ, or why Scriabin would perceive the same color for different keys.

Key	Scriabin	Rimsky Korsakov
C	Red	White
C#	Violet	Dusky
D	Bright Yellow	Yellow
E	Steel Gray	Bluish Gray
F	Bluish White	Sapphire Blue
F#	Red	Green
G	Orange-Rose	Brownish Gold
G#	Purple Violet	Grayish Violet
A	Green	Rosy
A#	Steel Grey	None
B	Bluish White	Dark Blue

[karlhenning]

You forgot Havergal Brian's 8th? I'm stunned and shocked! 

Your reproof is something too round!

[Florestan]

You forgot Havergal Brian's 8th? I'm stunned and shocked! 

Who? 

[Florestan]

Key	Scriabin	Rimsky Korsakov
C	Red	White
C#	Violet	Dusky
D	Bright Yellow	Yellow
E	Steel Gray	Bluish Gray
F	Bluish White	Sapphire Blue
F#	Red	Green
G	Orange-Rose	Brownish Gold
G#	Purple Violet	Grayish Violet
A	Green	Rosy
A#	Steel Grey	None
B	Bluish White	Dark Blue

5 out of 10 more or less the same. Is the bottle half empty or half filled? 

[Luke]

FWIW I don't think synaesthesia is really related to the ideas of key association I was outlining earlier, even though I did mention it in that post as something with can affect a specific individual composer's feelings for a key.

AFAIK no two composers or musicians would agree on a list of colours for all keys, even though there was once such a list (Matthesson provides it), and even though there is - probably because of the Baroque Heaven/Earth dichotomy between sharps and flats that I mentioned earlier - possibly a tendency for quite a few to see (e.g.) E major as blue and F as red/brown. This isn't a matter of perfect pitch; it's one of learnt association, I think. Certainly E major and F major can have this effect on (non-perfect-pitch) me, when I am listening to or reading or playing or thinking about such pieces. I don't particularly 'see' blue, but I do feel that the piece is blue in other, harder to explain ways.

[jowcol]

5 out of 10 more or less the same. Is the bottle half empty or half filled? 

Or, from a geek's perspective, is it within a 95% confidence interval?