A great discussion. Let me contribute this, the best single compilation of "character of the keys" descriptions... from Christian Schubart's Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806) C Major Completely Pure. Its character is: innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children's talk. C Minor Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key. Db Major A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace its crying.--Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key. C# Minor Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God, the friend and help-meet of life; sighs of disappointed friendship and love lie in its radius. D Major The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key. D Minor Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood. Eb Major The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. D# Minor Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D# minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key. E Major Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major. E minor Naïve, womanly innocent declaration of love, lament without grumbling; sighs accompanied by few tears; this key speaks of the imminent hope of resolving in the pure happiness of C major. F Major Complaisance & Calm. F Minor Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave. F# Major Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief utered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key. F# Minor A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language. G Major Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love,--in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key. G Minor Discontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; in a word: resentment and dislike. Ab Major Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius. Ab Minor Grumbler, heart squeezed until it suffocates; wailing lament, difficult struggle; in a word, the color of this key is everything struggling with difficulty. A Major This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one's state of affairs; hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God. A minor Pious womanliness and tenderness of character. Bb Major Cheerful love, clear conscience, hope aspiration for a better world. Bb minor A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key. B Major Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring coulors. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lies in its sphere. B Minor This is as it were the key of patience, of calm awaiting ones's fate and of submission to divine dispensation. Translated by Rita Steblin in A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. UMI Research Press (1983) -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf Of A440A@aol.com Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 8:46 AM To: pianotech@ptg.org Subject: Re: (careful, it is about temperaments) Greetings, For those that are just tuning in, there is a post from a concert pianist concerning temperament in our archives. It was posted on 12/9/01, and deals specifically how temperament affects the music. David writes: >>I find these two points to be at odds and reflective of a tendency, in >>these treatises, toward a sort of pianocentrism in explaining the choice of keys. Of the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven only 2 are in the key of C and most fall in the 2, 3 and 4 sharps and flats category. << I am not clear on "pianocentrism in explaining the choice of keys." When we are talking about pianos and the music composed for them, the choice of key is certainly indicative of something, and one thing common to composers of the Classical period is their reliance on the keys in approx. the same ratios. If we combine the works in the major keys of Mozart (21 sonatas, 17 variation, 26 solo keyboard works), Beethoven (24 sonatas, 199 variations, 32 other assorted keyboard works), and Schubert (12 sonatas, 3 waltzes), we come up with 343 separate compositions between 1760 and 1835. If we look at the keys used in these pieces, we see the following: CMaj. = 122 F ==== 44 Bb==== 24 Eb==== 33 Ab === 3 C# === 1 F# === 2 B ==== O E ==== 3 A === 37 D=== 50 G == 24 There is a very clear pattern here, no? And it is the same pattern we see when we chart the tempering of the WT form. Is this a coincidence? I submit it is not. Not only is there a pattern to the cumulative total, that same pattern is evidenced in Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert individually! Inre Beethoven, David continues: >>Only one piece is in 6 sharps and none are in either 5 flats or 5 sharps. You would think that if temperament were dictating choice of keys that there would be a greater dispersion. << I see the opposite. The numbers indicate that temperament was a compositional influence. Equal dispersion in the use of keys didn't happen until the late 1800's, when I believe ET became widespread. (several "Temperament-heads" that I know argue for the use of WT well into the 20th century, but I dunno. After listening to "Rhapsody in Blue" on a Young temperament, I am a firm believer in ET for that piece). The comparison above clearly shows that the pattern of usage mimics the pattern of tempering in a WT. LVB certainly favored Eb over all other keys, and if there is any logic for this other than a subjective favoritism on his part, it is that a 'home' key of Eb offered the greatest flexibility in modulation. This key has broad room to modulate up the dissonant ladder as well as down into consonance. Compare it to the key of F# and it is easy to "come back" to the tonic without suffering an increase in the level of tension. F# and B are hard keys to resolve, (is that why virtually no one used them? I am told that Bmaj. is an easy key for the hands, so there had to be some reason it was avoided by so many major composers). >>Interestingly, the width of the tonic major third in the keys with 2, 3 and 4 sharps or flats (where most of the pieces are written) falls very close to the width of the third in ET. << I respectfully disagree. The vast majority of the compositions are composed in 3 accidentals or less. If we examine the Young temperament, we see 2 accidentals (keys G or F) creates a 8 cent tonic 3rd, and 3 sharps or flats is the same as ET. When we reach 4 sharps, we are dealing with 18 cents in the third. This is hardly ET size. And while we are on the subject of Young, it is hard to imagine that such a mathematical genius would have presented a WT to the Royal Society if he had found favor in ET. Why would he have chosen the idealized WT as his vehicle in 1799 if ET was in common use? If anybody could have solved the problems in tuning an ET, at least enough to propose a method of tuning it, it would have been Thomas Young, and he did't. >>The assumption is also that it was the nature of the sound of the >>"piano" or like tempered instrument that guided compositional key choices. << I can think of no other guiding force that would have created the results of the compilation already displayed above. I would be interested in any other explanation for the pattern among these three major composers, individually and communally. >>Beethoven seems to have thought of his piano music in orchestral terms where the tempered scale again has little meaning. Much of Schubert's music was written without the benefit of a piano because he couldn't afford one and are similarly orchestral in structure. << Interestingly, in orchestral music, the various keys were regarded as having distinctly different "characters." Nobody composed serene, calm music in F#, B, or E, nor tense, dreary passages in the simpler keys. The Classical era was built upon the Baroque, and following the "Doctrine of Affections," composers beyond the Baroque sought to create an emotional response in the listener. That is easier to do when you have some keys that are sedative and others that are stimulative. During the Baroque, (meantone era), this couldn't have been done with tempering, unless you consider the occasional wolf that comes snarling in the front door a suitable stimulus for excitement. >>It's quite easy to construct an after the fact interpretation of key selection based on subjective viewpoints about contrasting sounds. I just don't think the evidence really supports the claims. << This is where we differ, I cannot find more than scant evidence that ET was considered, and most of that is the written accounts of theorists that objected to it. However, there is copious documentation that WT was in popular use. I also doubt that anything like ET can be produced by anyone other than professionals that do it a lot. I have seen part-timers try, but they don't come close. Montal's instructions of 1832 will give a very close approximation of ET, but you better be really good to succeed, (how many of us can tune four contiguous equally tempered m3rds in the octave and get it right?) What are the odds that the tradition-bound musical workers of the 1700's would have taken the trouble to be avant-garde when the status quo of the time was modified MT and well publicized WT? Look at how intransigent we, as a profession, are today? Our Guild has no teeth today, but 200 years ago, it was very different. >>The selection of key, I would suggest, was a response to WT's only in >>the sense that the self limiting choices of keys with relatively few sharps and flats were an attempt, consciously or not, to not drift too far from what ET eventually offered. << I don't see "self-limiting" in these choices. In fact, the WT offers far more musical resources, in terms of harmonic qualities, that ET. The choice of the most consonant keys for the majority of the music argues against ET being in use, and the sonata form, with its usual foray into the remote keys for "expression," seems to make great use of the contrasts. The wild modulations usually found in the second movement, (see http://www.lsu.edu/faculty/jperry/virtual_textbook/sonata.htm), go to the extreme keys. This harmonic exploration is hollow if all keys possess the same harmonic quality. >>And if we are going to use empirical evidence, while there are a few >>concert level musicians who argue for the use of WT's for a musical and historically accurate interpretation of 18th and 19th music, there are many more, if not nearly all, who, not inclined to sacrifice musicality or historical faithfulness, choose to play the music in ET.<< The vast majority of concert level musicians I have had dealings with are totally ignorant of temperament history,(beyond the difference between meantone and Et). The several well known performers I have tuned for didn't notice that the tuning was different until I told them. The general consensus has been that the piano was in a very resonant state of tune. Several of them have told me that during performances, they are too busy to pay attention to the tuning at all, and while on the road, feel fortunate enough to have a competent tuner that can render stable unisons. Seeking a non-standard temperament is beyond them. That is changing, though. >>When I talk with musicians who possess perfect pitch, they all describe different keys as having different characters, moods, feelings, colors whatever you choose to call it. Many of these musicians are not pianists and probably have no experience, or possibly even knowledge, of various kinds of temperaments. << Yes, and if you tune a piano 1/2 step flat in ET, they will ALL ascribe those characteristics to a key 1/2 lower than what you are really playing on. The "feelings" are pitch dependant. I believe that the attribution of certain "feelings" or moods to a given key are the result of the historical record of how those keys were traditionally used. If Ab had been used mainly for "expressive" passages, it makes sense that modern performers would have integrated that "use" with their recognition of the key. ( you will never hear a piece of calm, serenity in the key of B or F#). >>Many of the more famous composers of the 18th and 19th century, in >>fact, had perfect pitch. I would suggest that key selection had more to do with certain innate key characteristics than temperament.>> And what would those "certain innate key characteristics" be? If you have 88 exactly equal steps, there is no change in relationships from one key to the next, and there are no differences between keys except pitch. Those that have pitch recognition have no trouble ascribing familiar conventions to those keys. I have repeatedly said that any tech familiar with a varity of tunings can make a inarguable value judgement, since taste is subjective and unassailable. I personally don't think there is such a thing as a superior temperament. Every temperament has its strengths and weaknesses, and none of them work perfectly for everything. ET is very valuable for its flexibility. It is the simple way for us to make money, but is a terrible compromise for music composed before its widespread use. For the uncompromising, it is simply too coarse of a solution to appeal to the epicurean sensibility. With the ease of recreating the earlier temperaments today,(SAT, VT, RCT, Tunelab, etc.), there is no reason for the modern tech to rely on one and only one way to tune. Having a familiarity with several WT's is the same as having more tools in our kit. That cannot be a bad thing. Regards, Ed Foote RPT http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/well_tempered_piano.html _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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