Less common keys

[ardcarp]

Reading all the above makes one realise, perhaps, why minimalism took root (position) in recent times!

I think Schoenberg began Gurre Lieder (an uber-Romantic work) in 1900 and published his Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) in 1910. So his 12-note ideas came a bit later...the early 1920s I think.

[RichardB]

F sharp minor, surely?

[Serial_Apologist]

Nielsen "followed" Mahler, so to speak, in ending symphonic works in different keys from their openings. Nielsen followers, including John McCabe and Robert Simpson, followed this philosophy, which has long been coined "progressive tonality".

My music teachers at school taught that the naming of the key was that in which a work opened - or at any rate the key that announces itself with the exposition's main subject. Of course it isn't always immediately clear what key any music is in - the opening of Beethoven 1 has already been cited, and Anthony Payne did a broadcast on the English modal/pastoral school, in which he cited the tonally ambivalent opening passage of Vaughan Williams 5: is it in C or D?

[Joseph K]

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)

You are right, sorry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tonality

[Jonathan]

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….

Possibly, I'm going for religious sounding - it's a sort of extension and reimagining of the "De Profundis" part of Liszt's "Pensee de Morts" from the "Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses" (last version).

[ahinton]

And it ends, very tentatively, in F# major...

[Mario]

May I please thank all contributors to this thread for their helpful advice?

I asked for works in the more remote keys, and amongst others, the Chopin suggestion by Ein Heldenleben in #2 yielded some good ones. In my collection, there is the

Ballade No 3 in Ab Maj Op 47
Ballade No 4 in F min Op 52
Barcarolle Op 60, the Prelude No 13 Op 28 & Nocturne No 2 Op 15, all in F# Maj (this, to me, sounds like a nasty key to work with)
Mazurka in Bb Min Op 24 No 4
Nocturne No 2 in Db Maj Op 27

That should be enough to be getting on with!

Thank you all for correcting my mistakes. I must learn the difference between Cb and Cbb (thanks Dave 2002), and the difference between an octave and a min 7th.
Thanks to Joseph K and Richard B for teaching me about progressive tonality and Picardy 3rds. Hope I haven’t left anyone out.

Best wishes to all and never allow newcomers to doubt the validity and usefulness of this Forum.

Mario

[Joseph K]

Glad you've found the discussion useful, Mario.

You could check out some Liszt. His Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude is in F sharp major but whose sections delineate a descending augmented triad i.e. F sharp - D - B flat - F sharp. As discussed previously, such 'black-key' music isn't necessarily more difficult on the piano.

And Liszt's third consolation is in D flat major - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDmUk7ie6s

And the beautiful Andante Lagrimoso which deserves to be better-known, in G sharp minor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ABJhADcFMs

I love how Liszt's music can shift through different tonalities (major & minor) and key-relations all while retaining a sense of beatific, or other mood...

[mopsus]

Barcarolle Op 60, the Prelude No 13 Op 28 & Nocturne No 2 Op 15, all in F# Maj (this, to me, sounds like a nasty key to work with)

I don't think anyone's mentioned Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78 in this key.

[Mario]

I don't think anyone's mentioned Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78 in this key.

Thank you Mopsus!

Talk about having to eat humble pie! Being utterly devoted to the music of LvB, I should be ashamed of myself for missing this one.

Listening to it now.

Thanks again,

Mario

[ardcarp]

May I please thank all contributors to this thread for their helpful advice?

I asked for works in the more remote keys, and amongst others, the Chopin suggestion by Ein Heldenleben in #2 yielded some good ones. In my collection, there is the

Ballade No 3 in Ab Maj Op 47
Ballade No 4 in F min Op 52
Barcarolle Op 60, the Prelude No 13 Op 28 & Nocturne No 2 Op 15, all in F# Maj (this, to me, sounds like a nasty key to work with)
Mazurka in Bb Min Op 24 No 4
Nocturne No 2 in Db Maj Op 27

That should be enough to be getting on with!

Thank you all for correcting my mistakes. I must learn the difference between Cb and Cbb (thanks Dave 2002), and the difference between an octave and a min 7th.
Thanks to Joseph K and Richard B for teaching me about progressive tonality and Picardy 3rds. Hope I haven’t left anyone out.

Best wishes to all and never allow newcomers to doubt the validity and usefulness of this Forum.

Mario

If you want to explore some of the more exotic (but quite widely used) harmonic devices used by Classical and Romantic composers you could try the three sorts of Augmented Sixth chord (Italian, French and German as they have come to be known). They're often used to approach a 6/4 5/3 cadence or just a 6/4 chord before a cadenza. Another very poignant device is the Neapolitan chord, much loved of Baroque composers for emphasising pathos. (eg a first inversion B flat major chord before a cadence in A minor. Some composers get carried away and twiddle away in the major key a semitone above the minor key tonic note for a bar or two before finally arriving at a cadence in the home key.

If all the above sounds twaddle, I could either find examples or write some out and try to photograph them and post them up.

[RichardB]

If you want to explore some of the more exotic (but quite widely used) harmonic devices used by Classical and Romantic composers you could try the three sorts of Augmented Sixth chord

... or, as an extension of this, the way Strauss will often wander off in some seemingly random harmonic direction before suddenly revealing an unsuspected "wormhole" back to the tonic - as in the Rosenkavalier waltz music very obviously.

[ardcarp]

...or one could mention Prokofiev in his neo-classical mood. (But that doesn't really count because by that time the trad rules have been largely binned, and in his Classical Symphony he's playing rather naughtily with them.)

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't think anyone's mentioned Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 78 in this key.

That is a lovely piece . Not often programmed - not showy enough.

[cloughie]

... or, as an extension of this, the way Strauss will often wander off in some seemingly random harmonic direction before suddenly revealing an unsuspected "wormhole" back to the tonic - as in the Rosenkavalier waltz music very obviously.

I wonder if they think yes, an augmented sixth would work well there or is it more a bit of noodling and think ‘that sounds good I’ll write it down while I remember it - now how did it go?’.