Re: Unanswered Question #1

On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:48:49 GMT, "Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>
>"paramucho" <paramucho@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>news:4800388f.54413202@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:05:33 GMT, "Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>>
>> I didn't say that minor mode pieces were called Dorian. I wrote:
>>
>>  In Mozart's time Major and minor were still thought of as "Ionian"
>>  and "Aeolian" by many, although there was some debate as to whether
>>  the minor was actually "Aeolian" or in fact "Dorian".
>
>How many? And whom?
>
>[snip]
>>
>> If I recall correctly, I was making these points to illustrate the
>> error I saw in you saying that Mozart would have probably been
>> thinking in terms of borrowing from the dominant, when neither term,
>> "borrowing" or "dominant", had been invented at the time. Mozart was
>> probably thinking in terms of tem****ary key changes.
>
>
>Ok, maybe they had a term for it, and maybe borrowing wasn't it, but do
you 
>not agree that Mozart was conceptualizing, say an F# in C as being
related 
>to another key area, rather than from the Lydian mode?

Steve, this is the *fifth* time I post this sentence:

  Which is not to say that Mozart was thinking "modally" at the time,
  which was considered to be old fa****oned or suitable only for some
  church music. 

And in my last post, just before your question:

  Mozart was probably thinking in terms of tem****ary key changes.

Is there something not clear about these statements?

The point of my initial response was not suggest that Mozart thought
in terms of the Dorian, but rather to provide a corrective for the
simple picture you painted of the mindset in the 18th century as
somehow reflecting our current attitudes. 

Even if we find Mozart thinking in terms of separate keys, we still
have to ask what the concept "key" meant in the period, and whether
the concept was used as a kind of add-on to thoroughbass or fitted
into a grander mental scheme. In fact, we have very little evidence to
go on from the composers themselves, beyond some surviving corrections
made by Mozart and others to students work. From the theorists we have
rather too much :-) CPE Bach, who was both composer and author,
provides a middle-ground.

I found an online book section where Joel Lester discusses some of the
issues involved:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=EZIusK7t3ecC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=beethoven+lydian+mode+analysis&source=web&ots=TcCkAEDghm&sig=Sb2pVb622eY7s1pnC80XAytg_O8&hl=en#PPA13,M1

If that doesn't work, use Google Books to access page 13 on of Joel
Lester's BACH WORKS FOR SOLO VIOLIN where he discusses Dorian
signatures.


Ian