Key Colour Author(s): Franz Grœnings Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 27, No. 525 (Nov. 1, 1886), pp. 651-653

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This content downloaded from 146.201.208.22 on Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:37:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE MUSICAL TIMES.-NOVEMBER I, 1886. 651 figurationwhich, in commonwith other things,was on keycolour generally go in a circleand leave things due to easternexample and influences. But theyare as they were before, because opponents argue from the moreremarkable when we considerhow scanty and differentinstruments or combinations (voices included) limitedwere the means at thedisposal of the trouvbres, without sometimes even mentioning their respective and thatthey were composedat a timewhen music, basis or ignoring their difference,and then they both no less than poetry,had just emerged from six generalise the observations or impressions received centuriesof utterdarkness; nay,it maybe doubted froma certainsound producer. whetherthose simplestrains, combined with the soft Key or scale colour in the abstract does not and accompanimentof harp and lyre, did not perhaps cannot exist, as there is no key or scale fixed or accord,much more than the clang and clash of our attainable in nature, and anythingthat has been said moderncompositions, with Jean Jacques Rousseau's in favour of it was in the vmindat least of the speaker most admirableand adequate definitionof music as or writer deduced fromcertain sound producers with- 4' the art of combiningsounds in a manneragreeable out application to, and verificationfrom, other sources to the ear." At all as the of of a differentcharacter. " events," compositions the Minnesiinger"and Meistersinger,"whose With natural phenomenathe pitch of sound varies festivalsWagner has broughtso vividlybefore us in with the volume and force (or velocity) of the sound "' Tannhaiuser" and the " Meistersingerof Nurem- producer,and we find that a gradual increase of berg"; so also the poetry of the trouv6reswho volume and decrease of velocity or force deepens the graced the merryCourt of Thibaut of Champagne sound, and a gradual decrease of the former and was in the truesense of the termlyric poetry-viz., increase of the latter raises the sound just as gradu- it was intendedto be sung,and invariablywas sung. ally-i.e., the sound fromthe sea waves and a rippling The greatdefect of the printedreproductions-and, brook, from the cracking of a carrier's whip and a comparativelyspeaking, they are fewand farbetween boy's whip, from an eagle's flight and a swallow's -of that lyricpoetry is that,with the exceptionof flight, from the fall of a piece of rock and of a Michel's collection,they are incomplete,because they pebble, &c. reproduce the text witho t reproducingthe music, As regards vocal expressions,the case stands thus: .and therebyseparate thatwhich was intendedto be Human beings as well as animals contract in a inseparable; in short,they give the letterwithout state of excitement the muscles of the upper part the spirit. of the body, the natural consequence of which is CONTENTS OF THE SIENA MS. a slight rising of the larynx, a greater tension of the and Sixty-six Songs :-Fifteen, Thibaut IV., King of vocal ligaments, quicker pulsations, hence a Navarre; six, Blondelde Nesle (trouvbreof Richard higher pitched voice and quicker time for the -Cceur-de-Lion); one, Gautier de Dargies; four, expressions of joy, terror,&c., whereas in depression de Grieviler; nine, Perrin d'Angecourt; of spirits the same parts become relaxed, and the .Jehanthree, Cunelier d'; six, Robert du Chastel; vocal expressions in grief, &c., lower in pitch and ten, ; one, ; more measured in time. Here again, the same as one, Thibaut de Blason; nine,Colart le Bouteillier; with natural phenomena, a gradual rising and falling and one (No. 47), anonymous. of pitch takes place parallel with the gradations of excitement or This is second Twenty-one Jeux-partis:-Seven, between Jehan depression. tendency Bretel (Prince du Puy d'Arras) and Lambert Ferri; nature with us, and requires no tuition; hence no ,one,Cunelier and Grieviler; one, Robertde le Pierre one would entrust a piping male alto voice with the and Lambert Ferri; seven, Grieviler and Jehan representation of Hamlet's ghost, or a Russian basso -Bretel;one, Gaidifer and ; one,Cunelier p rofondowith the r6le of a Romeo. Here we have a and Gamars de Villiers; and one, Guillaume and law of nature if ever there was one, and it will Gilles le Vinier. remain one so long as we are constructed as we On the other hand, the unique compositions,are; but if our nature changed, so that joy relaxed togetherwith the names of the trouveresto whom our muscles, and grief contracted them, we would theymust be attributed,are as follows:- naturally pitch our expressions in a reverse manner. TenSongs :-25. "Bien doitchanter liement," Jehan This natural law excludes key colour in the ,de Grieviler; 33. " Ongues a fairechanson," Perrin abstract as generally propounded, because keys d'Angecourt; 40. " tantmercis ne sara demourer,"assimilated in character are a good deal removed in JA to the and some 41. "Amours me tient envoisde,"42. "J'ai longe- pitch according exponents' showing, ment pour ma dame chantb," Cunelier d'Arras; widely differing in character are close together. 45. " Entre regarte amoure 49. "Trop Moreover,a marked differencelike grief and joy biaut6," sent cannot exist in the abstract at a semitone's difference ii mal cruel'a soustenir,"53. " Ben s'est en moncuer reprise," 51. " A bel servir convient eur avoir," in pitch, otherwise what has been said formerly 56. "Tant ai amb,tant aim, tant amcre," Robertdu about, e.g., A flat, would now apply to G, or the Chastel. present A scale would be endowed with the charac- Four Jeux-fartis:-80. " Jehan,trbs bien amer6s," teristics of the formerB flat. What a nice confusion Jehan Bretel (Prince du Puy) and Lambert Ferri; there would be among the keys " expressive of grief, "Sire Prieus de Prieus de majesty, joy, pompous or womanly feeling" for- gI. Bouloigne," Bouloigne " and Princedu Puy; 96. " LambertFerri, drois es ke merly and now! E major is characterised as the m'entremete,"Lambert Ferri and Prince de Puy; brightestand most powerful" key, and A major as 97. "Grievilerj'ai grant Jehande Grieviler " redolent of simple genuine cheerfulness." There mestier," be in this if to the and Prince du Puy. C. P. S. may something applied piano (the reasons forwhich I shall show later on), but it can- KEY COLOUR not be generalised,as according to our law of nature any music in A must impress us as brighterthan if BY FRANZ GR(ENINGS. performed under the same circumstances a fourth THE renewed attempt of the Society of Arts to fix lower (in E). I also find E major endowed with a " Standard Pitch " may bring this vexed question "joy and highest brilliancy," but the next higher F before the musical public again, and as many of the as expressive of "passing regret and mournful objections to it are based on a wrong conception of feeling." If this were true in the abstract, the con- so-called " Key colour," a ventilation of this subject sequences might be serious. How perplexingit in a practical manner may be justified. Discussions wouldbe fora midnightserenader, who had forgotten

This content downloaded from 146.201.208.22 on Wed, 04 Nov 2015 14:37:19 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 652 THE MUSICAL TIMES.-NOVEMBER I, I886. his tuning-fork,to find afterwards that, whereas he which give all the stopped notes a slight vibrato. meant to touch the tender chords of "1womanly Had such a thorough master of instrumentation as feeling," or to express the " wailing of an oppressed Berlioz carried his characteristics through the whole and sorrowing heart," he must have roused feelings treatise, he would have varied them according to the of anger and contempt through serenading by mis- construction and manipulation of each instrument, take in a key expressive of" pomp, majesty, and and even the viola and cello would have received a pride!" If key colour in the abstract existed, slightly differenttreatment to the violin, as the Mendelssohn's " Barcarole," at the end of the first absence of the E string and the addition of a lower book of his " Songs without Words," would be heard string, C, shifts the effectof the open strings in in the Philharmonic pitch in a key which " adapts chords and scales in which E and C are important itself well to funeral marches ! " factors. In a relative sense key colour exists, but it is arti- The A flat movement in Beethoven's C minor ficially produced, and varies according to the Symphony is also often referred to by key colour characteristics and manipulation of the respective advocates. With regard to the construction and instrumentsand combinations. How much manipu- tonality of the principal instrumentsemployed in it, lation can alter the character and effect may be I may be forgiven in calling it, forexplanation's sake, judged from the solitary village bell, which gives an " Air with Variations for strings," interspersed notice of church service, and serves as wedding and with short Symphonies in happy contrast by the funeral bell as well; it is the manner of ringing it, wind. Beethoven, therefore,had the stringsin view not a certain pitch, which informsthe neighbourhood in this case, and chose forthem the most appropriate unmistakably of its meaning on each occasion. key to express what he wanted. If he could hear it Where a peal of bells is at disposal, it matters not played now (in the pitch of A natural in his time) I to the bridal pair whether they ring in D or in D flat, think it would sound to him just as lovely through and the strongest believer in key colour in the ab- the absence of open notes in the string; but if it were stract would hardly go to be married in another played to him now in the real pitch of his time- parish, because the bells in his own are pitched in a namely, in G-he would astonish orchestra and con- scale which some authority or he himself credits ductor with his remarks." Had it been the custom with a doleful meaning. Would the Dead March in his time to tune the string to the pitch of B flat from " Saul " sound to him like a Festival March if instead of to A natural, I think he would have written a brass band played it with the A crook substituted it in A natural to produce the effecthe desired. We for the usual B flat crook ? see from this again that, though we may to some To be correct about relative key colour, we must extent endow a certainkey (in this instance A flat)with always be careful not to shift the ground during the a certain characteristic, when played in by a certain argument, but stick to the sound-producer we argue group of instruments,one cannot endow the key of fromfor the time being. A flat in music generallynor in the abstractwith that Let us examine the relative effectsof some stringed characteristic. instrumentsfirst. A guitar is more evenly constructed, as the semi- Berlioz is often misrepresented as an advocate of tones are marked off as firmlyas the open strings key colour in the abstract. Those who quote him through cross metal bars the same as the nut, and I thus do him the injustice of unwarrantablygeneralis- doubt whether the finest ear can detect a differencein ing what he has distinctlyexpressed as referringto the character if a piece were played on a guitar as it is, violin only. He says at the end of the second chapter and then a semitone higher but with the same of his "Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and fingering,through affixingthe " capodaster " before Orchestration ":- the firstcross bar (which virtuallymeans shiftingthe "Violins are more brilliant and play more easily nut a semitone), because, through this contrivance., in keys which leave them the use of the open character and manipulation in both keys remain strings. The key of C alone appears to form an exactly the same. exception to this rule, as regards its sonorousness, Who would argue for a marked difference in which is evidently less than that of the keys of A tonality in the accompanimentstrings of a zither in and E, although it keeps four open strings, while A any key and a semitone higher, as the notes are all keeps but three, and E two only. open ? " The timbre of the various keys for the violin There is also no difference in the harp for the (sic !) may be thus characterised, together with their same reason (except the regular gradation up and greater or less facility of execution," &c. down, innate in nature as explained in the begin- Berlioz's observation about the C scale seeming less ning), provided the harp be tuned in equal tempera- sonorous or uneven on the violin explains itself,when ment, of which more later on, when speaking about we consider that in E the tonic and subdominant at organs. any rate are open, namely, the two highest, most The banjo is endowed with a very hard nut and is penetrating, and most used strings, and that in the fingered similarly to the violin, but it differsa little keys of A and D the tonic lies as an open note fromthe latter through being often operated upon between the open dominant and open subdominant, with a metal scraper instead of a bow, and having a but that in C neither the tonic nor subdominant is an piece of pigskin for a sound-board; the strings are open note, and the open dominant is only the lowest also differentin number and pitch; slight modifica- note, but seldom used, whereas the less important tions of the violin characteristics may thereforebe 2nd, 3rd, and 6th of the C scale are open, and the expected, and as the said instrument is so mightily chords in which they occur receive therefrom an manipulated at present, I hope that soon a com- undue importance and a preponderance over the petent exponent will reveal to its devoted students tonic, dominant, and subdominant, not given to them in which scales to scrape for the various shades of in other scales. All these characteristics of the key colour from "manly earnestness" and " deepest scales on the violin are thereforedue to its peculiar religious feeling" to" simple grace" and "passionate uneven construction, and they would disappear if the intensity!" hard ebony nut, which so firmly determines the beginning of each string at the scroll end, were re- one of india-rubberor some softmaterial of SOn the violin Berlioz qualifies- placed by A b - not very difficult,soft; veiled; verynoble. a pressure similar to that of the fleshy finger-ends, G t -= easy,rather gay, and slightlycommonplace.

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Sullivan's " Lost Chord " has been searched for on able, but it does not happen to apply. We all instruments,and in keys possessing all manner of shall always, it is to be hoped, have a welcome characteristics according to abstract key colour advo- for foreign talent-if it be superior to our own, and cates, but it has never been found yet. The other we can derive benefit therefrom. If we have talent day a street piano tried over and over again to grind as good, or better, in our own ranks, then we mean it out in E natural; round the corner I found a to be guided by the maxim " charity begins at home." solitary cornet-player before a tavern yearning for it In this Germany sets an example. Some years ago, in a most imploring manner in E flat (playing in F when our foremostviolinist, Mr. Carrodus, wished to on the B flat cornet), and in the next street a boy make an artistic tour on Teutonic soil, he was advised tried very hard (minus a few accidentals) to get it on to stay in England, because the Germans did not a D whistle-all with the same result: it remains want him. The tables apparently will soon be turned, lost! and our foreign friendsbe made to know that we are (To be continued.) no longer dependent upon them for our musical supply. The Leeds Festival, essentially English as it was, emphasised the change that has taken place, LEISURE to look our collection of " Curio- through and the organs of public opinion do good service sities ofCriticism " once more enables us to our present when, like the Globe,they draw attention to it. readers with a few specimens. At a Concert which, it is said, commenced with " an orchestral overture the ' Bohemian we are told that a from Girl,'" ONE more attempt is to be made to remove the solo was a "pianoforte ' Concertstiick' played by disgrace under which England has lain for the last amateur." this the lady Regarding composition, 19o years in sufferingthe greater part of the com- critic We must own to a that the says, " suspicion positions of her greatest composer to remain un- was not ' and as piece Concertstiick' pure simple, published. Germany has given us monumental we thought we could detect strains from ' Oberon' editions of Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and and of other well- running through it, fragments Beethoven, Belgium is busy with the publication of known numbers. The introduction did not detract the works of Gr6try, and even Holland has lately but it rendered it from the performance, unusually bestirred itself to revive the forgottenname of Sweel- tired out the clever long, and apparently pianist." nick, while England has remained satisfied that item is thus The Fair Another spoken of, " chorus, ' Purcell should be little more than a name among us. we was a land, greet thee,' splendid chorus, and, The Purcell Society, which was founded in 1876, has the want of in the notwithstanding palpable variety published two works in the ten years of its as only voices, there being, far as we could judge, an existence, and since 1882 has given no signs of life. almost total absence of tenors and contraltos, the But the circular issued last month shows that the number was one of the of the In a gems evening." Society has only slumbered, and is not, as most of notice of the of performance Haydn's " Creation," its members must have imagined, defunct. According is one vocalist said to have been "chaste and dis- to this document, the continuation of the publications to the full of those and criminating adjectives," was prevented by the difficultyof finding editors; to have in the Introduc- another shown, rendering " but this has now been surmounted by the generous Recitative " to the third of the tion and part Oratorio, offer of Mr. W. H. Cummings, who is willing to of nice distinctions in the " a knowledge themes, and undertake the sole labour of preparing Purcell's to exhibit the to the work power them," accompanist works for publication-no light undertaking,when it credited with exact and being " responsive playing." is remembered that at least twenty-sevenodes and Another in a criticism writer, upon "The Messiah," forty-fiveoperas, besides an immense amount of that " But who abide" is rather thinks may " heavy," Church music, remain to be published. The suc- and would like the to "The shall obbligato Trumpet cess of the undertaking now rests solely with the sound " to be with the " alone." In con- played trumpet public, and there ought to be no difficultyin obtaining we read that one of the examiners clusion, appointed a sufficient number of subscribers who are willing an Academic Board was Mr. H. Moss- by " J. Stark, to a guinea a year for the honour of England's and that at a Church Service the music pay bank, Oxon.," reputation as a musical country. was Redhead's Creed and "the rest of the Service 'Battiste's calkin.' " We leave these little puzzles to be unravelled by the well-knownprofessors to whom DR. STAINER'S Cantata "The Daughter of Jairus " they undoubtedly apply. was performed at Special Festival Services at St. Marylebone Parish Church, on the 2oth and 27th ult., under the direction of the In a brief and sensible remarks composer. SOME very pertinent appeared address delivered by the Rector, the mighty power of in the Globe ofthe 18th ult., concerning nationality in music to kindle was dwelt in music. were the immense and religious feelings upon They inspired by eloquent terms. The seed sown by the Dean of undoubted triumphof English art at the recent Leeds Gloucester in his memorable sermon at the recent and so aimed as to combat the absurd Festival, Festival is already beginning to bear rich fruit, notion that there is a kind of "Jingoism " in standing up for native talent. A spirit of self-appreciation has, we rejoice to say, lately appeared in this country LEEDS MUSICAL FESTIVAL. as music. We no the effortsof regards longer decry OURSPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) our own people. Talent amongst us has, at last, (BY fair It is invited to come out of holes and THE MUSICAL TIMES for October containeddescriptive play. in the fivenew and show what it can do in the of and partlycritical notices advance of works corners, presence at Leeds on the and three of a sympathetic public. All this implies an immense produced I3th followingdays to the of from the same month. We have now to act the part of a gain prospects English music, yet, and beforeour readers-with due for time to we hear it. Voices chronicler, lay regard time, protests against their and the at command-an important that music knows no and that we patience space cry out country, chapterin contemporaneousmusical history. should cordially welcome musical talent, come There are certainrespects in which one Leeds Festival whence it may. The people who talk like this so closely resemblesanother that briefwords regarding do not seem able to distinguish between things them serve to convey all that is needed. Thus we need that differ. Their protest is her se unassail- not be precise concerning the executive force gathered

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