565 and the extraordinarily beautiful but complex ‘Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue’ for harpsichord, BWV. Pieces in this key include the famous Toccata and Fugue BWV. The key of D minor is often associated with graver moments in JS Bach’s phenomenal output. JS Bach like any other composer wrote music whose timbres were dark. Looking at the key of E flat minor we find the blackest of keys, described by Steblin as having “feelings of anxiety and the soul’s deepest distress.” Interestingly, and by contrast, Steblin makes a case for A flat major being the key of Death that would have been recognized by composers of the time for that significance. In her account, Stebilin refers to F minor as one of the darkest minor keys with “groans of misery and longing for the grave”. Rita Steblin in her book ‘A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries’ (First Printed in 1983), provides a whole range of characteristics of keys that she claims were commonly accepted to be true during this period. The Third Piano Concerto Op.37, and the 5 th Symphony, Op.67, are also in C minor and show Beethoven at his tempestuously best with the shadows of darkness never far away. If you translate this into his compositions then you would need to include the Piano Sonatas Op.10: no.1 (1795-8) Beethoven is thought to have poured out his deepest despair and heroism through the key of C minor. Darkest Minor KeysĬertain composers seemed to favor certain keys when writing music. You might very well feel quite differently and that is the joy of music. As such, the pieces I highlight in this article are for me, dark and in minor keys. ![]() All these factors can greatly alter or influence how we hear music. ![]() This is because not only the key of a piece determines how we hear it but the tempo, the rhythms, the instrumentation and not least, the performance. It was a way of helping me and other students distinguish between these two types of key and chord that to an extent works, but presents a limited view of tonality. As a young musician, I distinctly recall being told by my teacher that the major keys are happy and the minor ones are sad. When people first start to get to grips with the concept of harmony in music (from a Western point of view at least), the words ‘major’ and ‘minor’ quickly enter the conversation.
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