Klarinet Archive - Posting 001128.txt from 1998/07

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Mozart's choice of instruments
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 01:24:24 -0400

At 11:53 PM 7/26/98 EDT, John P. Varineau wrote:
... Writers and
>composers of the day made a big deal out of the key of a piece and
>normally referred to a piece by the key, so that it wasn't Mozart's 40th,
>but rather his g minor symphony...

>One must ask the question, what leads a composer to choose a particular
>key for a piece? Does he/she wake up and say -- gee, I think I'll
>compose a symphony today, and, let's see, I guess I'll use B-flat.

You may have answered your own question here.

>Now a common listener sitting in a concert hall today really doesn't care
>what key a symphony is in, except for major and minor. Our lazy ears (I
>should say ours without perfect pitch) just cannot distinguish. I
>contend that a larger portion of the audiences back then could
>distinguish -- and you're right I have no scientific (quantifiable) basis
>for this.
>
Again, as you have pointed out, in the days before the tempered scale,
different keys really DID sound different and were probably distinguishable
by large portions of the audience. For a while after they may have sounded
different because some instruments were grossly out of tune in some keys,
but that has been fixed by modern instrument makers.
>
>Finally, part of the color of a key is directly affected by the
>instruments that play it. Such that violins in sharp keys, because of
>the number of open strings used (in 18th and early nineteenth century
>technique) do have a distinctly different sound than flat keys. This is
>why I find the tuning so irritating when I conduct the Mozart E-flat horn
>concertos. Great for horns -- lousy for violins.
>
If you have ever tried to play any horn with a rock band, you will find
that guitarists strongly prefer sharp keys, because they are easier for
them to play in. In the case of Mozart's horn concertos, written for
natural horn, E-flat was no doubt the best key for the soloist, and the
accompaniment players just had to tough it out. The crux of the question
at hand is that clarinets were available in multiple keys, making
(theoretically) ANY key possible, causing us to wonder why a particular key
was chosen.

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://members.wbs.net/homepages/z/o/o/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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