The Affective Properties of Keys in Instrumental Music from the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2010 The ffeca tive properties of keys in instrumental music from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Maho A. Ishiguro University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Part of the Composition Commons, Musicology Commons, Music Practice Commons, Music Theory Commons, and the Other Arts and Humanities Commons Ishiguro, Maho A., "The ffea ctive properties of keys in instrumental music from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries" (2010). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 536. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/536 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AFFECTIVE PROPERTIES OF KEYS IN INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC FROM THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES A Thesis Presented by MAHO A. ISHIGURO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC September 2010 Music © Copyright by Maho A. Ishiguro 2010 All Rights Reserved THE AFFECTIVE PROPERTIES OF KEYS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A Thesis Presented by MAHO A. ISHIGURO Approved as to style and content by: ________________________________________ Miriam Whaples, Chair ________________________________________ Brent Auerbach, Member ________________________________________ Robert Eisenstein, Member ________________________________________ Jeffrey Cox, Department Chair Music DEDICATION I dedicate my thesis to my father, Kenzo Ishiguro. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Prof. Miriam Whaples from the Music Department at UMass Amherst for her endless patience and guidance throughout the past years. I am forever grateful to many of my friends for their enormous support in the process of writing this thesis: William Wood, Sean Norton, Steven Christensen, Rachel Mascetta, and Aaron Chandler-Worth. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………….……..viii CHAPTERS I.INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 II. HISTORY OF AFFECTIVE PROPERTIES OF KEYS .................................................4 Section 1: Octave Species and the Ancient Greek .......................................4 Section 2: Modes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance ............................12 Section 3: Keys in the Baroque, Classical and Romantic Periods .............21 Classical and Romantic Periods ..........................................................26 III. AFFECTIVE PROPERTIES OF KEYS IN THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES ...............................................................................38 Section 1: Music Scholars ...........................................................................38 Adolf Bernhard Marx, Theory and Practice of Musical Composition , 1853 ..............................................................................38 Edward Hanslick, The Beautiful in Music , 1854 ................................40 John W. Moore, Complete Encyclopedia of Music , 1854 ...................43 Henry Edward Krehbiel, How to Listen to Music; Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art , 1869 ........................46 Ernst Pauer, the Elements of the Beautiful in Music , 1876 ................47 George Grove, A Dictionary of Music and Musicians , 1880 .............51 Edmund Whomes, “Key Colour,” Proceedings of the Musical Association, 13th Sess. 1886-1887 .......................................53 Franz Gronings, “Key Colour,” The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular , Nov. and Dec. 1886, Nov. 1887 and Apr., 1888 ......56 Hugo Riemann, On the Imagination of Tone and Analysis of Bach’s Wohltemperirtes Clavier, 1893 ..............................................61 Albert Lavignac, Music and Musicians , 1907 ....................................76 Ralph Dunstan, A Cyclopedic Dictionary of Music , 1925 .................78 Sir Donald Francis Tovey, Beethoven and “Tonality” (1928) ...........82 Otto Rudolph Ortmann, “What is Tone-Quality?” The Musical Quarterly , 1935 ....................................................................84 Harry Farjeon, “The Colour of Keys, and The Color of Notes,” vi The Musical Times, May and July 1938 ............................................85 Percy A. Scholes, The Oxford Companion to Music , 1955 ................90 Hans Keller, “Key Characteristics,” Tempo New Series , No.40, 1956 ........................................................................................93 Donald N. Ferguson, Music as Metaphor: the Elements of Expression , 1960 ....................................................................................................97 James O. Young, “Key, Temperament and Musical Expression,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , 1991 ............................98 Section 2: Scientists’ Views and Approach .............................................102 Hermann von Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tones , 1863 ...........102 Gene Revesz, Introduction to the Psychology of Music , 1953 .........107 Phillip Ewart Vernon, “The Individuality of Keys,” The Musical Times , 1942 .........................................................................110 Section 3: Composers’ Views ...................................................................113 Vincent d’Indy .................................................................................114 Composers and Synaesthesia in the Twentieth Century .................116 Arthur Bliss .....................................................................................120 Arnold Schoenberg .........................................................................122 Alexander Scriabin ..........................................................................127 Olivier Messiaen .............................................................................132 IV. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ..........................................................................141 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................145 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Ernst Pauer’s Analysis of Keys in Certain Compositions .....................................................48 2. Hugo Riemann’s Interpretations of Keys in J.S.Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier Vol.1. ..........63 3. Analysis of Hugo Riemann’s Interpretations of Keys (Using the Sharp-Flat Principle) ..........72 4. Albert Lavignac’s Analysis of Characteristics of Keys ........................................................77 5. Ralph Dunstan’s Analysis of Characteristics of Keys (from A Cyclopedic Dictionary of Music, 1925) ...................................................................................................................................80 6. Harry Farjeon’s Analysis of Characteristics of Keys ...........................................................87 7. Key-color description by Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin (from Scholes’s Oxford Companion to Music , 1955). ...................................................................................................................92 viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The concept of affective properties of keys is based on the assertion that different tonalities are able to provide particular moods to music. Discussions regarding the existence and validity of this phenomenon have always been controversial because of the lack of universal agreement and satisfactory explanations for its occurrence. Nevertheless, references to key characteristics have appeared in various fields of study over many centuries: the Greek doctrine of ethos, the writings of Guido d’Arezzo, Jean- Philippe Rameau’s Traité de l’harmonie , scribbles in Beethoven’s sketches, and several passages in Hermann von Helmholtz’s On the Sensation of Tones . The attitudes and opinions towards key characteristics have varied in each period of its history. Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, the characteristics of octave species were discussed among philosophers, namely Plato, and Aristotle. They were believed to influence moral development and were also associated with mysticism. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, references to key characteristics can be found in the writings of numerous theorists, including Gioseffo Zarlino and John Cotton. The studies and discussions of key characteristics in those periods became so well explored as to result in the first appearance of a list of the characteristics of each mode. In Germany and France especially, the discussion of key characteristics reached its peak in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it was studied as a part of 1 rhetoric. Theorists and composers alike showed their interest in the elements each key could offer to music and how to use those keys advantageously in order to enrich the musical experience of the listener. While key characteristics were studied commonly as a vital subject by composers in the eighteenth century and as a fundamental part of musical education by many young musicians in the early nineteenth