Little meditation on Bach.

[Enrique]

I misspelled the name, Philip: it's Diran_Alexanian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diran_Alexanian

[Enrique]

About tonality and symbols, this is what I have to say [Ed. Like always, so categorical]. A clarinet does not sound the same way in the low range as in the high range. The difference is timbre. In fact, a given tone won't sound the same as the adjacent one. Say, A_3 is different from B_3 in timber, though the difference would hardly be detected by a human ear. So, let's have a clarinet play a C major scale, from the instrument lowest tone to its highest one. We'll have constant variation in timber as we leave the low tone until we reach the highest. That is, pitch variation, in the real world of instruments, implies timbre variation.

What's said can be translated to any instrument. And as an ensemble of instruments, the orchestra is no exception. A C major chord, played by the full orchestra, won't have the same quality (timbre) as a C sharp chord played by the same orchestra. And E flat won't have the same quality as D major (always the same orchestra, for there can be subtle variations in timbre from one orchestra to the other). A sensible question, as I see it, is this: can the human ear detect the difference?

Which I am no one to answer. Beethoven explicitly said for him D major was not the same as, say, F major (I'm paraphrasing his words). As he also said he used to think his musical ideas "with instruments included", it is, I think, highly probable he could detect that difference. However, what was the A frequency in Beethoven's Vienna? As Peter has already pointed out, concert pitch has made a long way, rather, spanned a large interval, in the course of the last two centuries. What is then the meaning of saying E flat is heroic or C mayor bright. None. This is the same conclusion reached by the author in his paper. However, in a certain location and time in the past, the association of symbols to tonalities could well have been justified. And, as the author, explicitly or implicitly likewise states, that association, even by scholars, has been more of a myth than any other thing.