Re: [F_MINOR] Perceived properties of keys

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@UMICH.EDU>]

Good posting, Keith.  And that Steblin book is a good resource.

And all of this is even stronger in the meantone and modified-meantone
temperaments on the other side of the "well temperaments" (the circulating
ones where no fifths are allowed to be wider than pure).  Even the
"Well-Tempered Clavier" itself works beautifully in some of those
modified-meantone setups.  And Bach's inventions/sinfonias stick to
exactly the 15 keys where such temperaments work best: I believe this is
not a coincidence.

I like to think of temperaments rather like the American style of movie
ratings.  Equal temperament is rated G, the circulating "well
temperaments" PG, the modified meantones in the R and NC-17 range, and the
regular meantones from NC-17 into X depending how tight the tempering is.
Music written for those spicy temperaments sounds washed-out to nothing in
equal temperament; and music written for equal temperament (i.e. atonal
music) sounds bizarre and grotesque in the others.  IMO, equal
temperament does too much damage to *all* tonal music by diluting the key
differences and destroying distinctions of tension and resolution....

An old spreadsheet of mine that analyzes some of this stuff:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/temper.html

A friend of mine, years ago, joked that the key colors in unequal
temperaments could also be mapped onto flavors of Jell-O.  I think she was
making fun of a key-colors chart I had posted somewhere.  The mapping in
my mind is not so much to visible colors (wavelengths of light) as a scale
of varied intensity: relatively the same *effect* as seeing different
colors.  Hard to explain.

In the booklet of Helene Grimaud's second recording of Rachmaninoff's
second piano concerto, her own synaesthetic sensations are described.
That's similar to what I just said.  "Helene Grimaud describes these inner
colours as 'physiological' because they are different from the colour
impressions in the world around us.  She feels these colours more than she
actually sees them.  'The colours are something like the sounds of the
music perceived by our sense of feeling.  It is the idea of colour as
such.'"

One of my older postings here about this, especially about the
peculiarity of F Minor itself:
http://www.glenngould.org/mail/archives/f_minor/msg03878.html


Brad Lehman
(professional harpsichordist)


On Mon, 1 Mar 2004, Keith Jones wrote:

> Well, I guess I'll chime in here. This is a subject of some interest to me,
> as I am a professional piano tuner. At least for me there is no key color
> perceivable on a piano tuned in equal temperament. Every interval is the
> same, all the half steps are exactly the same size, all the thirds are
> exactly the same size, etc. I think it may be possible that people with
> perfect pitch might experience something like key color in equal
> temperament, but I have no experience with perfect pitch, so I'm not sure.
> I do know that if you tune a piano in an unequal temperament (sometimes
> called well-temperament, or historic temperament) there can be a great
> difference between keys, and it is quite interesting to play music in these
> temperaments. I believe that all composers from before about 1900 would
> have been influenced by well-temperament, and would be quite aware of the
> differences in key color, especially if they were keyboardists, such as
> Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Handel, Mozart, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, etc.
> The thing that is most notable in the different temperaments is the width
> of the thirds. A major third in equal temperament is 13.7 cents sharp. (100
> cents = a half step). There are various well temperaments in which you can
> have some very pure sounding thirds, but then you have to pay for this by
> having some very out of tune thirds in the more remote keys. There are some
> mild well temperaments in which you can quite easily play in all the keys,
> usually the keys of C, F and G are quite pure sounding, and the keys with
> lots of sharps or flats get quite tense sounding. This can make for some
> interesting effects when modulating, it may even be a big reason for
> choosing certain keys. Of course, once you start talking about other
> instruments there are all sorts of other things to take into account when
> listening for key color.
> Here is a collection of descriptions of keys from various writings from the
> past (quoted from a book by Rita Steblin):
> C Major:
>     "Completely pure" (Schubart, 1784)
>     "Cheerful and pure" (Knecht, 1792)
>     "State of nature, virginal chastity and purity, lovely innocence of
> youth" (Heinse, 1795)
>     "Naturalness and nobility" (Gervasoni, 1812)
>     "Cheerful and pure; innocence and simplicity" (Weikert, 1827)
>     "Simple, unadorned" (Schumann, 1835)
>     "Concerning the physical expression of this key, it appears to be
> completely pure" (Schilling, 1835)
>
> C-sharp minor:
>     "Penitential lamentation, intimate conversation with God" (Schubart, 1784)
>     "Despair" (Knecht, 1792; Schrader, 1827; Weikert, 1827; Ebhardt, 1830)
>
> D major:
>     "Gay things and grandeur" (Rousseau, 1691)
>     "Joyful and very militant" (Charpentier, 1692)
>     "Pleasant, joyful, bright, songs of victory" (Masson, 1697)
>     "Songs of mirth and rejoicing; grandeur and magnificence" (Rameau, 1722)
>     "Martial ardour" (Hawkins, 1776)
>     "The key of triumph, of Hallelujahs, of war-cries, of
> victory-rejoicing" (Gathy, 1835)
>
> E-flat minor:
>     "Horrible, frightful" (Charpentier, 1692)
>     "Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding
> despair, of blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul.
> Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of
> horrible E-flat minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would
> approximate this key" (Schubart, 1784)
>
> E major:
>     "Uplifting" (Junker, 1777)
>     "Bright" (Gretry, 1797)
>
> B-flat minor:
>     "Gloomy and terrible" (Charpentier, 1692)
>     "Mournful songs" (Rameau, 1722)
>     "Preparation for suicide sounds in this key" (Schubart, 1784)
>
> Unfortunately there are no citations for the key of f-minor in this source.
> But I bet if you play a few pieces from the 1700's to about 1900, you'll
> get the idea. I like the f-minor prelude in book one of Bach's well
> tempered clavier.
> This is a very simplistic description of a very complex and contentious
> subject, but I thought you all might enjoy some of the descriptions of the
> keys.
>
> At 07:24 PM 2/29/2004 +0200, you wrote:
> >To second Kate's request - a fascinating subject, about which lots of
> >confusing (to me, an amateur musician) stuff has been written.
> >Cld one of the musical boffins on this list give us a comprehensive reply
> >- gollys, it wld be appreciated! Please include if you wld be so kind a
> >listing of those composers who have definitively stated key x means
> >colour/emotion/whatever y.....
> >
> >Cordialement
> >Danielle

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