Music in unlikely keys

[Mark G. Simon]

Maybe just a prejudice of mine, but I have a hard time considering small-scale chamber symphonies as "real" symphonies.

15 instruments may be rather fewer than what Mahler was accustomed to using, but there are many 18th century symphonies that could be performed with that number of players.
And really, there's nothing "small-scale" about the composition.

[Brian]

Maybe just a prejudice of mine, but I have a hard time considering small-scale chamber symphonies as "real" symphonies.

But what's the problem with E major anyway for big orchestral pieces? Come to think of it, I can't name a concerto in that key, either. 

Moszkowski Piano Concerto (I think)
...not quite on the same level as the Bruckner, clearly. 

[greg]

It should be noted that there are 6 sharps in the key signature and after the introductory viola thing (which isn't in any discernable key),

Sounds mainly B minor to me.

[Maciek]

Scottie isn't sure the soundboard can take the tension . . . .

Precisely.

[Maciek]

Not really. The pieces are still notated and played in the written tonality. After all, there's nothing intrinsic or inevitable in concert A being 415 or 440 or even 465. Today's A may be the Bb of two centuries ago, but the character of the work remains unchanged.

I don't think a person with absolute pitch would agree...

Besides, doesn't a concert A of 415 Hz mean that, e.g. an A Minor piece is in effect performed as an A flat Minor piece? Or, conversely, if an A Minor piece was written with A=415 Hz in mind, but it is performed in A=440 Hz, doesn't that, in a sense, make it into an A sharp Minor piece? Arguably, the differences are not as simple as that (the diverse tunings of the past weren't each half a tone apart) but that makes the "new" keys even more "unlikely" in comparison to the old.

But all this is, of course, beside the point of the thread, sorry.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I don't think a person with absolute pitch would agree...

It's not a problem, because the person who was born with a.p. in 1800 learned A as 415. Someone born in 1975 learns A as 440. The only problem is when you hear an ensemble tuned to 18th century pitch. But there's a big difference between tuning the four strings of a violin down a semitone, and playing a piece a halfstep below written pitch.

[Maciek]

Ah, now I see your point.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It's still a mystery to me how a composer goes about choosing a tonality.

Some thoughts:

1) When writing for strings, if one wants to achieve brilliance, a sharp key like D or A is ideal. Why are so many violin concertos in D? Because that key lets the instrument play its I, IV, and V chords on multiple stops using open strings. An open string in itself sounds a bit harsh, but in combination with a stopped pitch, it's exceptionally powerful and brilliant. Conversely, a flat key like Bb minor has little likelihood of using open strings, so it takes on a more veiled character.

2) Before the days of equal temperament, a keyboard instrument would sound slightly out of tune in the keys with more flats and sharps in the signature. To tune C, F, G, etc. correctly in natural temperament, one had to sacrifice correct tuning in F#, B, Db, etc. I would love to hear Beethoven F# major sonata on a period instrument in natural tuning. With the piano, once equal temperament comes into widespread use, keys with more flats and sharps become commonplace because the greater distribution of black and white keys lies very comfortably for the hand. Chopin's Db etude from op. 25, for instance, is very comfortable to play (though of course not easy to get up to tempo). Transpose that same piece up a semitone to D, and it would be almost unbearably awkward.

3) Brass instruments in natural tuning, before the days of valves, had to be crooked to change key. A crook is a piece of additional tubing that alters the default key of the instrument. Crooks were not commonly available for every note of the chromatic scale (like Gb, Db, or B), and besides composers may have felt that the horn or trumpet was more reliable using certain crooks than others. Mozart wrote 3 of his horn concertos in Eb, and Bach most often writes for trumpet in D (which I think was uncrooked).

4) Keys with lots of sharps/flats can be harder to read. I find the denser sharp keys a pain, because there are inevitably a lot of double sharps, and I sometimes have to write out the enharmonic equivalents for myself. For string players, these keys may be harder to play in tune.

5) Keys have character associations, sometimes only for individual composers but sometimes for the whole culture. Beethoven called B minor the "black key" and used it rarely, but very "blackly" in the Agnus Dei of the Missa, less so in one of the late piano bagatelles. I don't know when C minor became decisively associated with stormy tragedy, but the sense is present by Mozart's time in his C minor piano sonata and concerto, very much magnified in Beethoven, and after Beethoven's time one could scarcely find a work in C minor that didn't have such connotations - Brahms's 1st quartet and symphony, Chopin's C minor prelude, Bruckner's 8th, the Rach 2 concerto. There may be nothing intrinsically tragic in C minor itself, but the connotation stuck over time.

6) Tonalities are sometimes chosen for purely practical reasons, like the range of the instrument or voice carrying a melody. This is my responce to those who insist that keys have absolute characters: E major for instance as innocent and Edenic, and F major as naively pastoral. When Beethoven arranged his early E major sonata for quartet, he didn't hesitate to transpose it to F, because that way he could take advantage of the cello's low C as the dominant note of the key. But I'm sure that when an operatic composer plans a melody for a singer with a ringing high note at the end, he's shaping his sense of the ideal tonality of the aria to best situate that high note.

[Szykneij]

I remember how surprised I was, the first time I saw the score to Barber's Adagio for Strings, which is in B-flat minor (5 flats).  My first thought was, What made him decide to use that particular key?--Bruce

I had the same reaction, Bruce. Despite its somber mood, the piece has such a quality of brightness to my ear that I always assumed it was in a sharp key. When I opened the score from the music library where I teach, the five flats deterred me from trying it with my high school kids. I've toyed with the idea of changing the key signature to 2 sharps and, with a few minor adjustments of notes and accidentals, playing it in b-minor instead of b-flat minor -- a very friendly string-player key. This might be the year I give it a shot.

[greg]

Beethoven called B minor the "black key" and used it rarely

Prokofiev's 1st String Quartet is in Bm....... needless to say, it isn't his most performed work 

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Thank you for that detailed exposition sfz. Since my musical performance experience is currently limited to diddling around with a piano, I know nothing about the limitations of strings and only a little about those of old brass instruments. I was aware of considerations 4 and 5, though.

One thing I find interesting is when the mood of the piece goes against the assumed character of the key. For example, Schumann's 2nd Sym. and Schmidt's 4th are both in clear-and-cheery C major, but nonetheless are tense and frequently dark in feeling.

[Mark G. Simon]

I am sorry to have derailed Spitvalve's meditation on the key of E major. This key is strangely underrepresented in the literature of tonal music, at least as evidenced in the main keys of sonatas and symphonies and other multi-movement forms.

The interesting thing about Bruckner's use of E major in the 7th symphony is that this is his only symphony in a key not used by Beethoven for a symphony. Maybe that makes this symphony more personal. I don't know. It's interesting how he chose his major keys for maximum variety: E flat, B flat, A and E. There's a certain symmetry there too, in the pair of fifth relationships. I can't say if that was intentional. There's also a symmetry in that he chose to write all his major key symphonies in the middle of his career (4, 5, 6, 7), and all the minor key symphonies at the outer edges, his first and last works in this form (0, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9). He chose his minor keys for maximum uniformity. All the minor key symphonies bearing numbers are either in C minor or D minor (there's also a "student" symphony in F minor), the same keys as Beethoven's 5th and 9th. 

The one Beethoven key Bruckner didn't use in a symphony, F major, became the key of his only chamber work, the String Quintet.

Clearly, one of the reasons composers choose the keys they do is for external associations, sometimes meaningful only to themselves.