E flat major

[vinteuil]

Are you really "less than impressed" by Schubert's Sonata D960? Or by Beethoven's Archduke Trio and Op. 130 Quartet??

... d'you know? - I think there are lots of jolly good pieces written in most of the available major and minor keys...

Not very much in f# minor perhaps - tho' there is that gorgeous Pavane by Louis Couperin. And Bach of course could always work wonders...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A=440
how quaint and unusual

what happens if you have someone playing (for example) a modern Marimba or Tubular bells or even most modern instruments ?

A file and some sandpaper would solve the problem.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Are you really "less than impressed" by Schubert's Sonata D960? Or by Beethoven's Archduke Trio and Op. 130 Quartet??

Great music, I acknowledge, but somehow none of them really inspires me. I know it's utterly irrational, but...

[John Shelton]

off-shore topic

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And talking of my antipathy towards B flat major, I always feel as though Karl Bohm conducted in that key. Karajan, on the other hand, was an E flat major conductor -

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And talking of my antipathy towards B flat major, I always feel as though Karl Bohm conducted in that key. Karajan, on the other hand, was an E flat major conductor -

There's irony: I would always class HvK as the dominant conductor of the two!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There's irony: I would always class HvK as the dominant conductor of the two!

[ahinton]

An American pianist of my acquaintance (no names, no pack-drill, of course) once said to me that no one but Beethoven knew better how to go on and on being pompous in E flat, as though, for her, that tonality seemed to Beethoven to be ideal for that purpose; amusing as I found this take, I reminded her of the Op. 127 Quartet, of which the very opposite would have to be said...

[Dave2002]

"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" ?

A couple of years ago I was asked to find recordings of a section of Messiah - I think it was "For unto him ...."
I acquired and digitised about 10 different performances/recordings. Some were very obviously flatter or sharper, but what was a surprise was that I nearly always felt a slight change of pitch whenever going from one to the next, even if they were close in pitch - they were not all identical. I'm not talking about "authentic" or HIPP orchestras vs modern either - just orchestras and choirs which one might have expected to be using a standard pitch.

Made me think that even a few Hz difference is detectable.

[MrGongGong]

Made me think that even a few Hz difference is detectable.

Of course
the degree to which it is detectable is relative to frequency (and also spectral content)

this one (again) is interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb24c77zJ64

[Dave2002]

Of course
the degree to which it is detectable is relative to frequency (and also spectral content)

this one (again) is interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb24c77zJ64

Interesting. Actually after the first few, most of them are similar, until one crashes into Hogwood, then Norrington and Gardiner. Milan was obviously a bit sharper.

[Alison]

Just to say I prefer E flat major to G minor

[Dave2002]

Just to say I prefer E flat major to G minor

You can do the lists for E flat major then!

[ardcarp]

Oh please don't. Leaving aside the perceived merits of each of the 24 major and minor keys, those who have played (or attempted to pay) a load of Chopin on the piano will be aware that he likes keys with a lot of black notes. His particular brand of florid passage-work lies more easily under the fingers. Just think of the well-worn Fantaisie Impromptu in C sharp minor. It would be much harder in, for instance, A minor.

[Lat-Literal]

Just to say I prefer E flat major to G minor

Ah, we have been here before in a roundabout way and I wasn't aware of it but I am always empathetic in regard to extraordinarily positive attempts at resurrection!