Re: Unanswered Question #1

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:29:13 GMT, "Steve Latham" <llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:

>
>"paramucho" <paramucho@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>news:47fedcf8.8323468@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> 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:
>
>I know. Read above. I'm asking about Mozart's contem****aries: "How many?
And 
>whom?"

If the following question,

  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?

is not a question about Mozart, then I don't know what is.

>Thanks for the Lester link, I'll check it out.

That will help clarify the issue regarding names of keys and modes etc
(and note that in German they still use the term "tonart" for both
modes and keys, using qualifiers to distinquish), but it won't help
much on how what their equivalent was for borrowing etc.

There is a do***ented case where Mozart handles a progression in a
piece in G minor (I think) by explaining it as being in "C minor", the
passage consists of two 1/8th note chords.

Thus, Mozart, at least, thought in terms of keys, but, again, I hasten
to add that what he thought a "key" was could have been very different
to our view. The "tonal" idea, that a key controls a whole bunch of
relation****ps, didn't arrive until about a century after Mozart.

We see a continuation of this kind of "key" thinking in the early
definitions of borrowing as being a tem****ary modulation. That view is
castigated these days, but I think that's partly because the
definition of "modulation" has changed. In Koch's book on composition,
he treats "modulation" very broadly as anything involving the
non-diatonic notes, beginning by using the augmented second and
tritone as melodic examples. As I stated in an earlier post, he
usually begins by providing melodic examples, then two part examples
etc.

We have a little bit of evidence of how Mozart thought, but how his
peers thought is a whole different ballgame. That's where you would
see the whole range of emerging proto-tonal thinking, modal and
adapted modal thinking mixed up and twirled around. 

I think we overestimate the problem. There's a big difference between
learning a "dead language" as a student and growing up inside the
living culture of the language itself. Mozart heard this music every
day and heard little else, and he was also inventing the language. He
*knew* what to do.

Ian