Re: Unanswered Question #1

On Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:54:25 GMT, "Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>
>"paramucho" <paramucho@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>news:47faf461.13861411@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>> I didn't claim that the terms major and minor weren't in use in the
>> period, I said that the older terms were still used by "many" not by
>> "all".
>
>I think then, "a few" would have been a better choice of words.

If you want to quibble, then let's quibble :-)

"A few" might fit the world picture you'd like to imagine, but it was
more than that. The least I'd settle for would be "a significant
number", in particular because there was a Mode-Vs-Key war raging
between theorists in the period (as re****ted in my last post).

I found one reference to "D minor" in a Mozart letter in a
German-language biography -- but, interestingly, that's *not* the
equivalent of our current day "minor", which is "moll" in German, but
fits more closely terms "modus major" and "modus minor" in Walther's
Musicalisches Lexicon", published in 1732. 

In any case, I think we can be pretty certain that Mozart wasn't
thinking Kostka and Payne.








Ian