Baroque key identities

[Guido]

I've read in several places that in Baroque times each key was generally associated with a different mood or feeling some of which are here:

G minor (tragic consummation)
F#minor (transcendent suffering)
A major (joy and grace)
B minor (human pain)
D major (worldly power and glory)
E minor (crucifixion)
G major (blessedness)

What are the other ones? Where are they defined? Were they generally accepted by all Baroque composers? If not, who used them? Is there a thread that I'm missing on this subject?

[btpaul674]

http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html

cool link.

and yes there is a thread.

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,274.0.html

[dtwilbanks]

"D Minor: Melancholy womanliness"

Rut-ro. 

[btpaul674]

Not as bad as -

"A Minor: Pious womanliness"

[btpaul674]

In all seriousness its a text thats pretty out there. But it is easy to match up some of the keys to pieces that could embody the description. Then again I can also think where there are pieces in complete contradiction.


I like this -  Chariots of Fire by Vangelis is in Db -

Db Major
A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key.

[Gurn Blanston]

BT,
Yes, but they are talking about other than equal temperaments. There really are significant differences in sound quality between d minor and a minor on keyboards of the time.

Of course, we can easily look back at "Affekts" now and laugh at the purple prose of the time, but as a philosophy (and music was heavily based on philosophy then) the people who made and listened to music took it very seriously indeed.

That quote of Schubart is from Rita Steblin book "A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries". She also quotes several other contemporaries and predecessors of Schubart in there. What I found interesting was how different the descriptions of the keys were. I don't own the book ($100 ) but I read it in bits and pieces at the library a couple years ago. I'll try and Google some of the others by way of comparison.

"D Minor: Melancholy womanliness" - Hmmm, OUR d minor is anything BUT melancholy!

[BachQ]

"D Minor: Melancholy womanliness" - Hmmm, OUR d minor is anything BUT melancholy!

And, by Gurnian implication, I've mastered the "womanliness" element ........   


Gee, thanks .........