Musical questions and answers thread

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Petty, mean and inaccurate, Alpie. Vltava would have been "allowed", I presume, yet it is much more "programmatic" than 1812, in that the Music of the latter doesn't follow "the story" - the narrative gets mucked around for the sake of the Musical structure.

Very true, Ferney. It begs the question of which works are truly programmatic, without being altered for the sake of the musical structure.

Perhaps -

Elgar: Falstaff
Strauss: Domestic & Alpine Symphonies, Till Eulenspiegel
Beethoven: Wellington's Victory (1st movement)

[Petrushka]

I would say that Tippett's The Rose Lake is an example of a contemporary symphonic poem.

I'd never have called 1812 a symphonic poem: Tchaikovsky called it an overture and that's what it is.

[Pabmusic]

Very true, Ferney. It begs the question of which works are truly programmatic, without being altered for the sake of the musical structure.

Perhaps -

Elgar: Falstaff...

To an extent I agree, except that Elgar has constructed a highly integrated 'symphonic' work in four sections and two interludes. I've said here before that if he'd never written about the programme and had just called it Symphony No. 3 in C minor it'd hardly have been unjustified.

[cloughie]

I like Antar very much, and it has always been Symph. 2. The original published score (Bessel & Cie.) has "'Antar' - Suite Symphonique (2me Symphonie)" on its title page.

Me too. It's one of those works with that full of tunes feelgood factor!

[cloughie]

To an extent I agree, except that Elgar has constructed a highly integrated 'symphonic' work in four sections and two interludes. I've said here before that if he'd never written about the programme and had just called it Symphony No. 3 in C minor it'd hardly have been unjustified.

Pure Elgar, unlike the Payneful reconstruction which some refer to as Sym 3.

[Pabmusic]

Pure Elgar, unlike the Payneful reconstruction which some refer to as Sym 3.

[mathias broucek]

When I was teaching O-level music in the 1970s, I read an examiners' report on candidates' answers to questions in the previous session.

One question required the candidate to choose a tone poem and write about it. The examiners hardly covered themselves with glory when they disallowed Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, saying it wasn't a tone poem, but programme music. How petty and mean!

Badly worded question by the sound of it....

[EdgeleyRob]

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538.
Apparently it's not in D Minor because.....

it is often referred to by the nickname Dorian — a reference to the fact that the piece is written without a key signature — a notation that is uncommon today and leads one to assume the Dorian mode.

what does that actually mean ?.

[Serial_Apologist]

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538.
Apparently it's not in D Minor because.....


what does that actually mean ?.

In its simplest (for the layperson) transcription, the Dorian Mode consists of a scale of D natural on the white notes of the keyboard, without sharps or flats, therefore not requiring a key signature: i.e. the D minor diatonic as in its descending, as opposed to ascending progression, where the C would be sharpened.

I hope that explains it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

In its simplest (for the layperson) transcription, the Dorian Mode consists of a scale of D natural on the white notes of the keyboard, without sharps or flats, therefore not requiring a key signature: i.e. the D minor diatonic as in its descending, as opposed to ascending progression, where the C would be sharpened.

I hope that explains it.

Yes - and, descending, the B would be flattened, so that the key signature of d minor has one flat - the same as F major.

[EdgeleyRob]

In its simplest (for the layperson) transcription, the Dorian Mode consists of a scale of D natural on the white notes of the keyboard, without sharps or flats, therefore not requiring a key signature: i.e. the D minor diatonic as in its descending, as opposed to ascending progression, where the C would be sharpened.

I hope that explains it.

Yes - and, descending, the B would be flattened, so that the key signature of d minor has one flat - the same as F major.

Many thanks SA and Ferney.
I'll have to have a think,I know D Minor has one flat,not sure I understand SA's bit.

[Nick Armstrong]

Many thanks SA and Ferney.
I'll have to have a think,I know D Minor has one flat,not sure I understand SA's bit.

I get very hazy with modes. Various learnèd people have explained over the years, and it's been in one ear and out the other, not necessarily passing through the 'understanding' section on the way!!

So I'm with you Rob!

[Pabmusic]

Perhaps I can have a go.

To introduce 'Dorian' in discussing JSB's great Toccata & Fugue is misleading. If it were genuinely in the dorian mode, there would be no flats or sharps. and melodies would be characterised by intervals found in the dorian mode (particularly the flattened seventh - c-natural instead of c-sharp- and natural sixth - b-natural instead of b-flat). Yet what we get is an opening flourish replete with c-sharps on strong pulses, followed by an arpeggio containing b-flat and c-sharp - a characteristically unusual-sounding interval when used melodically.

What seems to be happening is that JSB switches between different forms of a D minor scale. Often he uses what is known as the 'harmonic minor' (which includes both b-flat and c-sharp, whether you're going up or down the scale) and occasionally (11th bar, for instance) it's the 'melodic' minor, which has b-natural and c-sharp ascending but c-natural and b-flat descending. Being a genius, JSB feels free to mix these different versions of the minor scale to create at times an 'odd' sound (or so it might have seemed to an early 18th-century listener). But it ain't modal in any meaningful sense that I can see.

[Later edit]

Aaargh!! We're not discussing BWV 565!

So, how does what I say above apply to this toccata and fugue? Rather well, actually. We encounter c-sharps in bar 1, b-flats in bar 2, both of which are foreign to the dorian. True there are c-naturals in bar 2 and b-naturals in bar 3, but they are immediately followed by c-sharps and b-flats, ending in a V⁷-I cadence containing a c-sharp. Nothing modal there, and nothing that can't be related directly to either the harmonic or melodic minor. In particular, there's nowhere I can see where a dorian scale (containing b-natural and c-natural) is clear and not in close proximity to 'foreign' notes.

A piece that's genuinely in the dorian mode is Frederick Kelly's Elegy for Rupert Brooke that was played at the Proms.

There. An attempt to redeem myself.

[teamsaint]

I

I get very hazy with modes. Various learnèd people have explained over the years, and it's been in one ear and out the other, not necessarily passing through the 'understanding' section on the way!!

So I'm with you Rob!

Well I tend to be with you too, cals. Probably the fact that they weren't much mentioned or taught at all in GCSE/ A level back in the day?

There is a long Wiki article here, which explains , amongst much else, how the terms Modal and Mode have come , over time, to have a wide range of meaning, and which points to some of the reasons why there is some haziness perhaps , since the basic notes of the modes are simple enough to understand.

There are a couple of interesting and simple quotes at the end of the "Other Types" section.



"Another general definition excludes these equal-division scales, and defines modal scales as subsets of them: "If we leave out certain steps of a[n equal-step] scale we get a modal construction" (Karlheinz Stockhausen, in Cott 1973, 101). In "Messiaen's narrow sense, a mode is any scale made up from the 'chromatic total,' the twelve tones of the tempered system" (Vieru 1985, 63)."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(music)

Useful, and rather simpler description from Classic FM here, with some nice musical examples.....the Phillip Glass, for instance.

http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/guide-to-musical-modes/

Here is a youtube video , with the score, which shows the use of the mode in Beethoven SQ #15, in this case showing rather handily, at the very start, the use of the sharpened 4th.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FaVXtdmCjgY

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I get very hazy with modes. Various learnèd people have explained over the years, and it's been in one ear and out the other, not necessarily passing through the 'understanding' section on the way!!

So I'm with you Rob!

Put over-simply:

If you play a scale on a piano from D to D (an octave higher) using only the white keys (ie no sharps/flats) you get the notes of a Dorian mode.
Do the same with a white-note scale from A to A, you get the Aeolian mode.
E - E is the Phrygian mode (Shostakovich was fond of this one)
F - F is the Lydian mode
G - G is the Mixolydian

The C major scale is also the Ionian mode.

B - B is the Lochrian, and, AFAIK, was never used before the 19th Century (presumably because it's the only one that doesn't have a perfect fifth from the "tonic").

Each Mode was supposed to have its own, unique "mood" (hence the name) - but what these unique moods were differs from writer to writer.