Less common keys

[Ein Heldenleben]

The above quote didn't refer to anything I've posted (I don't think), Auferstehen, but although I am no expert on Serialism, I think the 12-note row treated all the semitones as equal....in other words, equally tempered semitones as on a piano. So I really can't see that how you notate them matters one jot*. No doubt someone will correct me if wrong. All I remember from my undergrad days is drawing coloured lines on the score of Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra to link up the tone rows. I disliked them intensely, but they were mercifully short. To prove I'm not a complete Philistine, I love Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Berg's Violin Concerto plus his opera Lulu. But that's 2nd Viennese School Lite.

*I doubt Grades VI to VIII ABRSM Theory concerns itself with such matters!

From the grade 8 theory supplement it would appear you are right
“ Grade 8 As in preceding grades . The harmonic vocabulary will include all standard diatonic and
chromatic chords. “
There’s completion of a trio sonata with helpfully a figured bass. Completion of a keyboard piece , and completion of a melody. Also commenting on extracts . I wouldn’t be surprised if this includes an atonal piece though.

I always used to like doing the atonal or quasi atonal pieces that cropped up usually from piano grade 5 onward . The easier Schoenberg for example . This was partly because the pieces tended to be shorter . They didn’t have the repeats that you’d get in a Hummel first movement or Bach partita which meant you weren’t playing the same notes endlessly- in the case of Hummel perhaps beyond the musical worth of the piece. They were also free of endless scale and arpeggio passages which after a while just gets boring. And that’s their technical challenge : there’s no muscle memory to draw on . Every thing was fresh . My teacher thought it was harder to get a distinction with these pieces as there were so many nuances but easier to get a pass as you might get brownie points for tackling them. Very few people did and perhaps the examiners were grateful for not having to sit through another Mozart Sonata in F first movement….

[Joseph K]

It isn't something to toy with! - I would say there are very many composers working today whose working methods are influenced by seriality (I use that formulation to avoid calling it an "ism"). Anyone working with electronic music, for example, is working with hard- or software whose architecture is based on the systematic separation of "parameters" that stems from serial thinking. By the same token anyone working systematically with such parameters in notated music could be described as composing with methods that evolved from serial composition. The number 12 isn't the important thing - Stravinsky's serial music was often based on series containing fewer pitches, and Stockhausen's concept of serial composition could be described as involving first identifying musical parameters (pitch, duration, dynamic etc.), assigning minimum and maximum values to these parameters, and making musically significant traversals of the space between them. In other words serial thinking has been absorbed into a more generalised view of systematic compositional procedures. A series of pitches might then consist of (to cite my own last two compositions) 48 pitches encompassing all the chromatic pitches within a four-octave range, or 8 pitches corresponding to the first eight odd-numbered partials of a given fundamental.

Indeed. I think it was Arnold Whittall's aim to show how prevalent serial thinking has been through most the twentieth century up to the present day, with this book which I can recommend (though it focusses quite a bit more on music from the first half of the 20C):

[Joseph K]

From the grade 8 theory supplement it would appear you are right
“ Grade 8 As in preceding grades . The harmonic vocabulary will include all standard diatonic and
chromatic chords. “
There’s completion of a trio sonata with helpfully a figured bass. Completion of a keyboard piece , and completion of a melody. Also commenting on extracts . I wouldn’t be surprised if this includes an atonal piece though.

I always used to like doing the atonal or quasi atonal pieces that cropped up usually from piano grade 5 onward . The easier Schoenberg for example . This was partly because the pieces tended to be shorter . They didn’t have the repeats that you’d get in a Hummel first movement or Bach partita which meant you weren’t playing the same notes endlessly- in the case of Hummel perhaps beyond the musical worth of the piece. They were also free of endless scale and arpeggio passages which after a while just gets boring. And that’s their technical challenge : there’s no muscle memory to draw on . Every thing was fresh . My teacher thought it was harder to get a distinction with these pieces as there were so many nuances but easier to get a pass as you might get brownie points for tackling them. Very few people did and perhaps the examiners were grateful for not having to sit through another Mozart Sonata in F first movement….

In the AB Guide To Music Theory Part II there are actually just over two pages about serialism.

[Ein Heldenleben]

In the AB Guide To Music Theory Part II there are actually just over two pages about serialism.

I’ve been trying to work out a couple of questions . Complete the following tone row? Combine this tone row with its retrograde inversion? What’s hampering me is my lack of knowledge. On a serious point Some one I know who did music at Uni told me that Schoenberg’s Treatise on Harmony was the best single volume on the subject in his view.

[RichardB]

Some one I know who did music at Uni told me that Schoenberg’s Treatise on Harmony was the best single volume on the subject in his view.

It's very extensive and detailed and contains various digressions on philosophy and aesthetics, which some might find hard going; also it's not for the beginner but assumes at least a beginning-undergraduate level of understanding as its starting point. I can't claim to have read very much of it though! I've never been one for music textbooks.

[Jonathan]

I'm planning a piece, part of which will be in A flat minor. Should be fun!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm planning a piece, part of which will be in A flat minor. Should be fun!

That will at least avoid having to use double sharps.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm planning a piece, part of which will be in A flat minor. Should be fun!

The only other piece that springs to mind ( aside from cycle of keys keyboard works ) is the Marcia Funebre from the AFlat Beethoven piano sonata . Hopefully yours will be less gloomy….

[Mario]

Well, well, well This is all really interesting!

I did notice another comment by you Joseph, of your musical qualifications and how useful they have been to your enjoyment of music...

As soon as I read this comment

In the AB Guide To Music Theory Part II there are actually just over two pages about serialism.

I dived for my copy which I haven’t yet opened in preparation for my Grade VI, that I assume you’re referring to Chapter 24/3, pp. 248-250. A light, a very dim light, is beginning to slowly emerge from the tunnel end..

Thank you Joseph K. You’ve given me much hope and motivation to carry on.

So another question to all of you please. I posted this on the old BBC MBs, but didn’t get an answer that I found satisfactory. Why are complete works deemed to be in a certain key?

I can only comment on the area of music which I understand is called Common Practice, so…

Joseph, you have just listened to the Eroica by Savall. The work is known to all of us as being in Eb Maj. Why?

1st Movement begins and ends on the tonic chords of Eb Maj. Whether it modulates to other keys I do not know, as I haven’t studied Modulation yet.

2nd Movement I think is in C min. In the last bars I see the Leading note as being sharpened, so I think it’s C min.

3rd Movement begins and ends on the tonic chords of Eb Major. Why the empty bar at the end? There is no accent there, is there?

4th Movement begins with a lot of accidentals in the torrent of strings in the opening bars. I’m not able to work out the home key here. I believe the work ends in Eb Maj.

So, the slow movement is in C min, the relative minor of Eb Maj, but the other three are in Eb Maj.

Do we simply take the key most music is in and call that work, “In the key of…”?

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing – how true! Did I read somewhere that sometimes composers chose the Home key depending on the French horns as they had to change crooks? Or something like that?

Mario

[Ein Heldenleben]

With 3 of the 4 movements in E flat and the slow movement as you say in the relative minor key of C minor (both keys have three flats ) it’s about as “in” E flat as it’s possible to be. Being Beethoven (quite a whiz at modulation) the first movement pretty soon ends up in E minor though. The opening flourish of the final movement is really just a call to attention which ends on a B flat 7 chord ( the dominant of Eflat ). This opening is fundamentally in E flat. In movement 3 The empty bar at the end with the fermata (pause ) is perhaps to stop over eager conductors hurtling into the finale?

It’s an interesting question about keys in symphonies . Beethoven had a habit of composing symphonies with (usually) 3 of 4 movements in the works main key so it makes sense to describe them as being in an overall key. It doesn’t always make sense. The classical symphony (in the first movement ) often reinforces the underlying tonality of the movement by repeating the second subject in the home key in the recapitulation. Beethoven also has a habit of grounding the work tonality wise by beating the listener to death with the tonic chord at the end of the entire work e.g. the end of the Fifth.
,

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Do we simply take the key most music is in and call that work, “In the key of…”?

Generally speaking, yes, though the best guide is the key of the first movement. Even that can be a but of a tease, if you take the introduction to the first movement of Beethoven's 1st Symphony, which takes a few bars before actually settling into C major. Several well-known symphonies in minor keys, end up un the major; though technically the key remains the same, the mode being different.

[Joseph K]

Well, well, well This is all really interesting!

I did notice another comment by you Joseph, of your musical qualifications and how useful they have been to your enjoyment of music...

As soon as I read this comment



I dived for my copy which I haven’t yet opened in preparation for my Grade VI, that I assume you’re referring to Chapter 24/3, pp. 248-250. A light, a very dim light, is beginning to slowly emerge from the tunnel end..

Thank you Joseph K. You’ve given me much hope and motivation to carry on.

You're welcome.

Ein Heldenleben seems to have covered most of your Eroica-related questions.

I'd just add that the fifth symphony is an example of 'progressive' tonality, since it ends in the parallel major. Not sure if Beethoven was the first to do this in a symphony (possibly Haydn got there before) but it was taken up by Mahler, among others.

[Ein Heldenleben]

You're welcome.

Ein Heldenleben seems to have covered most of your Eroica-related questions.

I'd just add that the fifth symphony is an example of 'progressive' tonality, since it ends in the parallel major. Not sure if Beethoven was the first to do this in a symphony (possibly Haydn got there before) but it was taken up by Mahler, among others.

Apologies I’ve just realised the questions were addressed to you . As it happens I had the Liszt arrangement of the Eroica in a pile on the sofa next to me !

[RichardB]

Beethoven also has a habit of grounding the work tonality wise by beating the listener to death with the tonic chord at the end of the entire work e.g. the end of the Fifth.

Only outdone by Shostakovich's own 5th.

In music of the classical period it isn't just horn crooks that composers had to concern themselves with but also timpani which in those days of course didn't have pedals for retuning. But as the 19th century goes on, symphonies and other larger scale works don't always have to end in the same key as the beginning. Beethoven's 5th begins in C minor but ends (as noted) somewhat emphatically in C major (I'm not sure this counts as "progressive tonality", more like a "Picardy third" writ very large); Mahler's 2nd, which also begins in C minor, ends in E flat major, while his 9th begins in D major and ends, not very emphatically at all, in D flat major. Moving on from there, Schoenberg's 2nd Quartet begins in F# major but has left tonality behind altogether by the end.

[Joseph K]

Moving on from there, Schoenberg's 2nd Quartet begins in F# major

F sharp minor, surely?