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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000070.txt from 2003/11

From: Jennifer Paull <jennifer.paull@-----.com>
Subj: [DR-L] Key signatures, another optic
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 03:05:34 -0500

On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 09:54 pm, Richard White wrote:

> Good for you, Phil; I share your sentiments. The notion that anything
> that is still useful and _works_ could be obsolete is silly if not
> downright fraudulent. For the past few years I have chosen to focus my
> compositional efforts in two areas that are often considered to be
> 'obsolete' musical styles: Classic Ragtime Piano music and 18th
> Century (Bachian) styled keyboard preludes and fugues, both, of
> course, using traditional key signatures.
>
> Some of us simply think that the calendar is secondary to good work.
> And, as it is said in the world of pugilism: the best defence is a
> good offence. ;-)
>
> Richard White - Another composer from Tucson

Dear Richard,

Can you define "traditional" key signatures? Let's take C minor. Of
course, you
know that it was "traditional" to write it until the 1920's or even
later ( depending
on country, publisher and accepted regional practice) with only 2
flats? As the
submediant varies according to whether melodic or harmonic rules are
pertinent,
it was practice to include it's as natural by default and add a flat if
necessary
on the line.

I have a score of the Alessandro Marcello Concerto from a period like
this
printed in Germany when the work was wrongly attributed to Benedetto,
in the wrong key of C minor anyway, (D minor has since been proved by a
ms found in The Netherlands), and sporting a C minor key signature of 2
flats.

Today, we take another point of view. We include both modal notes and
flattened leading note within the key signature and make it 3 flats for
C
minor adding natural signs when necessary for the melodic minor
intention for the submediant (super-dominat) and leading note,
(note sensible) in their ascent.

In French baroque music, the rules of our present ears concerning the
raising of the mounting 6th and 7th and the lowering of them in their
descent do not apply as matters of course as they do to ears modified
by the "norm" in practice in the present time.

Baroque music is not just one language - it is a universe filled by
differing
styles, just as German, French and Italian modify speech.

Therefore, works that were written during the period so favoured by you,
did not necessarily appear THEN, cloaked in key signatures as we now
know them, although written in the same key. We all know that what
sounded C minor could vary up to a minor third within the same country
in Telemann's time. So again, key signatures applied to abstraction
rather
than a reality set in concrete.

Comfortingly Cagean, wouldn't you say?

So, one can be referring to the fads and fashions of the use and
application
of KEY SIGNATURES in their criticism, as opposed to the actual
TONALITY they implied. Of course, all this is an argument of which you
are
aware.

Writing in a formula already established by a creative mind is not the
same thing
as writing "Whitian" music that others will search to study in 253
years. It is a
necessary part of development, but not its goal. All composition
students have to
do that as part of their training in Europe. That doesn't mean it is
their final language
or alphabet of self expression - though of course, it may well be. The
fugue is an
architectural structure, not a tonal discipline, is it not? There is no
"of course" about
their having to be tonal. Benjamin Mawson has written the most
exquisite illustration
of this architecture without using "conventional" tonality.

http://newmusicworks.com

I can also assure you that many composers delight in writing in keys
that cause
the eye grief. A little cunning passage in C flat or E sharp may do
wonders for the
ego with the Finale programme, but makes no sense. Many times I have
quizzed a
composer who had submitted a score. The use of B double flat in an
atonal pieces
was told to "feel that way". Right - well, when there is no reason for
that spelling,
calling a A an A never hurt anyone.

Many composers today adore this game making them feel important. It
makes the
performer flee their music. Fault, if that is the word, lies
everywhere. So do good
intentions.

The key signature game and criticism of it therefore, is not just so
easy to blatantly
brush over as though the entire world exists in one style, with one
logic at one
present moment, speaking one language - even when above everything
else,
one might wish to follow the rules of Ancient Greece in matters of
tonality in the
21st Century.

In my opinion, tonality is but one post Shoenbergian language of self
expression.
I'm delighted it is there, but it is not within the bouillon cube of
the signature that
we find the essence of tonality - as half are minor and were not always
set in stone.

They are therefore not necessarily the most comfortable pair of
moccasins are
they?

Jennifer Paull

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Jennifer Paull,
Amoris International
http://www.amoris.com
Rare music at the press of an oboe and a computer key
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