# Transformed works



## johankillen (Sep 20, 2015)

Hi guys,

Do you know any work that have been transformed from a major key to a minor key or vise versa? 
I did just wonder how, for example, The first movement of the moonlight sonata should have sounded in a major key instead of a minor key. Have you ever thought in this way? I think it's a funny experience and I have done this transformation in my younger days in some rock music with a funny result.
If you are a good pianist you mabey could do this experince and paste in the thread? 

To make a discussion, which work do you think is the most interesting work to hear in a parallel key?


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## David OByrne (Dec 1, 2016)

The first transformers was ok but I think it went downhill with the second movie, am I alone on this?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

You couldn't do it without transforming the rest of the modulations sequentially and you'd wind up in some wildly different strange place.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MarkW said:


> You couldn't do it without transforming the rest of the modulations sequentially and you'd wind up in some wildly different strange place.


True. Direct transpositions between major and minor work only with simple tonal schemes based mainly on the circle of fifths and involving tonic-dominant-subdominant relationships. Chromatic harmony is already neither major nor minor, and attempts to transpose chromatically related harmonic areas take us off on tangents that won't resolve back.

Theme-and-variation works use major-to-minor transposition routinely, but the theme has to be suitable, or else the minor version will need to be a free adaptation rather than a direct transposition. In sonata-form movements a theme may be put in the minor for developmental purposes. Most melodies longer than simple motifs sound odd or ridiculous when this is done to them. I've played the first movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C major. It's hilarious.


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