Key and Character

Parla, you're a sharp one. (Geddit?)

Taking your suggestion of starting off an exploration of a composer's oeuvre by choosing pieces in E flat or F Minor, may I also suggest bearing in mind the opus number. Generally speaking Parla, the lower the opus number, the more youthful and immature and derivative a work. The higher the opus number, the more accomplished and original the piece is likely to be.

However, one should also bear in mind that odd numbered opuses tend to be, well odd pieces of music, and even numbered works tend to be more even in structure. This is generally acknowledged.

You need to search Parla, for something like a Symphony in F Minor opus 64 or 76 or 82 or 96 even. This seems to be a perfectly normal and logical thing to do. (However I wouldn't go higher than an opus 100 - such works are usually the product of old-age and show signs of senility when a composer's invention is on the wane).

Today I shall be starting my Mass in E flat opus 90. Never mind about whether I have penned 89 compositions before - I can always go back and fill those in later on.

A Mass in E Flat is a statement of Fact, not just of faith. Who, in this era when people talk of 'the God delusion', can argue with a God who sits squarely in the middle of a Mass in E flat? Especially combined with such a mature opus number. A no-nonsense, meat and two veg, X-factor approving God?

After Christmas Parla I am starting my Violin Concerto in D Major opus 43. As this is an odd numbered work Parla it will contain some uncertainty of mood and expression and therefore might not be to your taste.

Mark

On a serious note, this thread is interesting because I am now understanding more what the various keys have meant to composers in terms of mood...

Naupilus, you would find it even funnier, if you chose works written in E flat minor or in B flat minor, for example. The key you chose is a "difficult" one, due to its five sharps and its distance from the main or reference key (C major). Its relative key (G sharp minor) is even more cumbersome, particularly for the orchestration and structure of the work.

A potential interesting program (with alternatives) of works in B major could be:

- Bach's magnificent Preludes and Fugues from the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier or Schubert's Piano Sonata D.575 or, of course, some of the Chopin's works in this key.

- The slow movement of Hummel's Piano Trio in E flat, op.96.

- Haydn's very interesting String Quartet op.55, no.3 or Barber's String Quartet, op.11.

- The slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor Piano Concerto.

- The Symphonies you mentioned in your post or Korngold's Sinfonietta, op.5.

Of course, you may always combine works of the relative key (the very few on G sharp minor) and its parallel minor key (the very important b minor, where there are more and quite substantive works).

Parla

Bazza

First saw Fitzcarraldo when I was about eight and it has never left me. As for Vlla-Lobos I think there is a bit more to him than that, but I take your point.

Foz is indeed a beautiful place - much better from the Argentinian side where you get to stand on the precipice of the falls. But I do prefer the Sahara -  I really am a desert diver at heart, but my wife prefers the mountains.

Brumas and Eliza, I have responded to your posts with a thorough one but in the wrong thread (Listening project). If the moderators do not move it here, you can check it there.

Sorry for the mistake and the inconvenience.

Parla

I must say I find this discussion rather frustrating despite the subject being a fascinating one. 

Firstly, even those who most strongly advocate the individual character of particular keys (including many composers and performers) never say that the character of the key is the sole or even predominant characteriser of a particular work.  It is too naive to take at random a group of works by different composers (all in the same key) and expect immediately to hear a 'B-major-ness' or whatever.  Comparing say between Haydn symphonies might be more appropriate but even then no-one is saying that the key is the only ort even most important characteristic.

Second I find it odd that whenever important characteristics that vary with key signature, such as: the way composers write in different keys, sonority (and tuning) of instruments, and presumably the way music lies under the fingers, these crucial determinants of key character are brought up, they are deemed irrelevant, or off the point! Exclude all the evidence and of course there will be no evidence left!

Eliza, your comment on the transposition of Lieder is a good case in point. Take Winterreise, the example you gave is as good as any. You say that baritones and mezzo-sopranos transpose the music downwards and suggest that we do not notice anything. Again, first point is that comparing two singers' (and pianists) interpretations we are faced with so many differences beside the key change that we may not find the transposition uppermost in our thoughts. Second, I have yet to hear a recording (or performance) of Winterreise (or any of the major song cycles) that is a simple transposition. In every recording I know where the original key is not sung, singers transpose different songs differently, thus changing not only the key but the (arguably even more important) key relationships between the songs. This is very obvious to many listeners.  Surprisingly (at first sight) a singer particularly guilty of this was Fischer-Dieskau. How could this be? The answer is simple, F-D understood how much better the songs sounded in their original keys and whenever he could he sang in the original keys (and more so than any other baritone).  He obviously put higher priority on this than on the damage done by transposing some songs but not others.

Another example. I once attended, as an observer of course(!), a master class at Snape on Schubert Lieder, given by Martin Isepp. He accompanied young singers himself. One mezzo was singing Der Musensohn.  After making various suggestions without getting the result he wanted he stopped, and said "Well, just try this" and off they went.  Magic! It was perfect and the whole audience burst into applause. What had happened? The singer had been performing it transposed down a tone. He just started playing the accompaniment in the original key. No-one present doubted the effect. His comment was "there are some songs that should not be transposed".

What I'm trying to say I suppose is something like "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Chris

Interestingly, I think the approaches of Charpentier and Schubart above are possibly musical examples of the literary device known as pathetic fallacy. Grannies and egg sucking here possibly, but it's the technique of attributing human emotions to inanimate objects, similar to personification:

Examples are commonly found in Romantic poetry and Shakespeare. Thus in Macbeth, where Lennox does his speech about the chimneys blowing down - he is describing unnatural events to parallel Macbeth's violation of the natural order by killing the king. Last night there was a heck of a storm guys - 'Some say the earth was feverous and did shake'.

Tennyson in eg Mariana:

With blackest moss the flower-pots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

In other words I would say the feelings about the different keys are attributed by composers. Whether it makes a difference to how we perceive a piece if it is transposed I'm not sure. All I will say is that apparently it used to be fashionable to print Schubert's wonderful Gb impromptu in G Major. I'm sure it is a lot easier to play in G Major!

Mark

Parla - I'm sure you understood my festive jest to you, that if we recommend certain composers only, and certain keys, where does it end up? All the best to you and everyone for this Christmas season.