E flat major

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

To my ears the major change between Elgar's acoustic recording of S2 in 1924/25 and the electrical one of just two years later is not in the vibrato, but in the reduction of sliding between and into notes. Did that become non-pc in the mid 1920s?

His Enigma Variations electrical recording is still rather " slippy" in Nimrod (which is, incidentally, in E flat).

[maestro267]

Totally agree with the 1st post about preferring Elgar's 2nd Symphony to the First. It honestly moves me like no other work apart from Mahler 2. It's easily my favourite British symphony, and a special experience I had while on holiday recently sealed that fact for me.

On the subject of the key of E flat major, to me it evokes a grand, broad, open space. Like being on a clifftop or the summit of a mountain and taking in the vast expanse around you.

Nice to have a thread which discusses this sort of thing. I happen to have "perfect" pitch, so I find the subject of how certain keys evoke certain moods very interesting.

[teamsaint]

Totally agree with the 1st post about preferring Elgar's 2nd Symphony to the First. It honestly moves me like no other work apart from Mahler 2. It's easily my favourite British symphony, and a special experience I had while on holiday recently sealed that fact for me.

On the subject of the key of E flat major, to me it evokes a grand, broad, open space. Like being on a clifftop or the summit of a mountain and taking in the vast expanse around you.

Nice to have a thread which discusses this sort of thing. I happen to have "perfect" pitch, so I find the subject of how certain keys evoke certain moods very interesting.

I have known a couple of people with perfect pitch, but never discussed it with them.
Might sound an odd question, but is it ever a problem or irritation...or is it only ever useful?

And as a side issue, is it known what proportion of people have PP?

Can't understand the Elgar 2 better than 1 thing though !!

[Dave2002]

Having had no musical education,the key a work is in makes no difference to me,it's just part of the title of the piece I suppose.
I do like the sound of the words 'in C sharp minor' though, no idea why.

Instantly reminds me of Op 131, and I can imagine parts of it immediatetly.

[Roslynmuse]

The keys of many of George Butterworth's Shropshire Lad songs were altered between the early performances and publication. It was clearly GSKB's doing, since the original (in Eton College library) and the publisher's fair copy (in the Bodleian) are both in his hand. An example is The lads in their hundreds, which went up a semitone from F to F-sharp. These were presumably for the singer's convenience, but it's not really obvious.

I was thinking about songs as I was reading through this thread. Many C19 songs are routinely published in two or more keys (whether with the composer's agreement or not is another matter) and in my experience getting to know a song in one key and then hearing it in another can be quite distressing, even when on paper the keys are not far apart (I'm not talking here about some of the grotesque low voice editions that occasionally appear which necessitate counting ledger lines below the bass stave and then checking that the notes are on the piano...). I remember when I was a student accompanying a singer in Duparc's Lamento - medium voice, C minor - and then hearing a performance in the high voice key, D minor. The effect of the chromatic harmony was somehow skewed for me by hearing it a tone higher - no doubt in part (and probably to quite a great extent) conditioned not just by my aural memory but a muscle memory too from having played it in a different key.

My sense of perfect pitch is now rather less perfect than it was even five years ago, and that is also something that (if I think about it) I find has a distressing effect on my listening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The point about songs being transposed is an interesting one. Although I think I'm key sensitive, the fact that I rarely notice when I hear transposed performances suggests that this is not really the case.
Having perfect pitch must be as much a curse as a gift, though very useful.

[salymap]

Last item on TtN today was the Hummel Trumpet Concerto in Eb. A nice bright key imho.

[Dave2002]

Msg 35.

I recall reading that Benjamin Britten had a similar problem, so that later in life he heard everything a semitone out. Not sure which way, though.

[EdgeleyRob]

If I could write music I would compose something in C sharp minor.

[cloughie]

The keys of many of George Butterworth's Shropshire Lad songs were altered between the early performances and publication. It was clearly GSKB's doing, since the original (in Eton College library) and the publisher's fair copy (in the Bodleian) are both in his hand. An example is The lads in their hundreds, which went up a semitone from F to F-sharp. These were presumably for the singer's convenience, but it's not really obvious.

Baritones and tenors need different keys but does this, on the basis of effect of keys on the mood of music make a difference, to the final sound.

[Roslynmuse]

Msg 35.

I recall reading that Benjamin Britten had a similar problem, so that later in life he heard everything a semitone out. Not sure which way, though.

That's exactly what I experience now. if I'm listening to an unfamiliar piece I'll often think 'that's in (for example) E', only to discover it's in E flat. That wouldn't have happened a few years back. Sometimes the intellect comes into play eg 'this Mozart/ Haydn' is very unlikely to be in A flat, which is my first response, therefore it must be in G'. What happens next is a sort of mental juggling akin to trying to see the image one doesn't see first in the famous two faces/vase optical illusion.

[Pabmusic]

Baritones and tenors need different keys but does this, on the basis of effect of keys on the mood of music make a difference, to the final sound.

That's what I thought, but the Butterworth alterations are nothing to do with that, it seems - the songs were not published in different keys (as RVW's Songs of Travel were in fact). It's just that Butterworth changed the keys of three songs, putting two up a semitone and the third, rather surprisingly a fourth. Obviously the keys meant something to him; he must have detected a difference.

[EdgeleyRob]

Not sure what it means but it just looks so beautiful Apparently it's E Major as well C sharp minor sounds so much better.

[teamsaint]

Not sure what it means but it just looks so beautiful Apparently it's E Major as well C sharp minor sounds so much better.

Going back to your last post, ER, you certainly can write music. Might be great, might not, but you could do it !
bit of very basic theory, copy of Sibelius (ironically !) software, off you go !!

I like the simplicity of Bb Major!(which as I recall is sod to play in a contary motion scale).

Edit, I do agree that musical notation does look very beautiful. I should really try to listen to more music while following the score....expense ! Mind you there are some great bargains in the charity shops., if you are happy to buy what they happen to have. Oxfam tend to have the best selection.

[MrGongGong]

Having perfect pitch must be as much a curse as a gift, though very useful.

"Perfect" pitch is a bit of a myth IMV
many people have "relative pitch" , when I used to sing in a church choir I could tell with fairly exact precision what a played note was
but this is simply a physiological memory not the supposed "perfect pitch" that some profess to have
A colleague who is a real expert on temperament was telling me that he did an experiment with a room full of music college students who played orchestral instruments asking them to imagine an oboe playing a tuning A then to hum the note, which turned out to be A on the piano
but this isn't "perfect pitch" either ........

I think some of this arises as a result of the confusion between the three terms we normally use
pitch
frequency
and
note

If I had "perfect pitch" what would it be tuned to ?
A =442
A=440 ?
A=436
etc etc

and at what age would it have been set ?
If I was born with HIPP "perfect pitch" would the LSO sound "out of tune" ?

When I was a student we had a lecturer who was a very accomplished musician and academic who claimed to have "perfect pitch" and therefore he found that Indian music all sounded "out of tune" which was more a pose on his part.

It is interesting that many people who claim this do so as a kind of status game (a bit like the oboists who insist that they play their A as 440 precisely and don't need to tuning meter ............ watch the harpist then !!!) and i'm sure there's a fascinating study to be done about it.

There are very obvious timbral differences between pitches and keys but as most of our music in the West adheres to the Pitch/Time paradigm we tend to be a bit deficient in ways of describing them. In electroacoustic music Smalley's writings on Spectral Morphology can tell us many things about this but this is sadly seen as too niche for most discussions about Classical music.