# Classical pieces labelled with the wrong keys



## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I am looking for pieces whose "official" keys are not really the keys they begin in. I am counting major and minor keys with the same tonal center as different. This includes pieces whose opening key is ambiguous or nonexistent. I am mostly interested in good pieces by good composers who wrote tonal music. Here are some candidates (these are my opinions):

Tchaikovsky's 3d symphony "in D major": this begins with a funeral march in d minor, which lasts for a pretty long time. It transitions to D major. Why do we say it begins in D major? BTW, I think this piece is underrated, except for the last movement, which I don't care for at all. 

Tchiakovsky's 1st piano concerto "in B-flat minor": starts with some horns suggesting b-flat minor, but modulates immediately to D-flat major. If I had to choose, I would say it starts in d-flat major. 

Ravel's Concerto for the Left Hand "in D major": I'm pretty sure it starts with the basses playing their open strings in the pattern EADADGGDADAE repeatedly. Does not suggest D major. Then I think the contrabassoon steps in, playing a theme in the minor mode (not sure which tonal center). Does not suggest D major. When the piano finally enters, I think (?) it plays black keys, which definitely does not mean D major. Incidentally, shortly before the entrance of the piano, it sounds to me like there is some bitonality going on (with the tonal centers separated by a major second), and in descriptions of the piece I have read, no one has observed this.




Does anyone have any more examples? 
Is there anyone more familiar with Ravel's left-hand concerto who can describe its beginning better?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Pachelbel's Canon in D

It's actually in J


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

^ Better than the original!


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## atlanteanmuse (May 29, 2013)

Mendelssohn's String Quartet Op. 13, often labelled as in "A minor", actually begins and ends in A major. 

A number of Haydn symphonies (e.g. 98 in B flat major, 104 in D major) have tonic-minor introductions that do not affect the key designation of the work.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

spradlig said:


> Tchaikovsky's 3d symphony "in D major": this begins with a funeral march in d minor, which lasts for a pretty long time. It transitions to D major. Why do we say it begins in D major? BTW, I think this piece is underrated, except for the last movement, which I don't care for at all.
> 
> Tchiakovsky's 1st piano concerto "in B-flat minor": starts with some horns suggesting b-flat minor, but modulates immediately to D-flat major. If I had to choose, I would say it starts in d-flat major.


Who says Tchaikovsky's 3rd begins in D major? And why would this be relevant to what key the movement is in? One doesn't decide the key of a movement based on where it starts. Where it ends and the key(s) of the principal themes are the essential criteria. It is always a good idea to look at the final cadence first.

Our new friend from Atlantis  is right about Haydn. But the minor mode introduction to a piece in the major mode, for the sake of building tension and expectation, is a conventional gesture I wouldn't be inclined to count as starting in the wrong key


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*"Everything is in flux." ~ Herodotus*



EdwardBast said:


> One doesn't decide the key of a movement based on where it starts. Where it ends and the key(s) of the principal themes are the essential criteria. It is always a good idea to look at the final cadence first.


Exactly 

The OP reminds me of a post on another forum long ago, by a supposed 'theory expert,' which asked "Why does Beethoven start this piece in the wrong key?"

I've forgotten which piece, (Mr. Bast might know precisely one or several such) but the thrust of it was he had opened in the sub-mediant (vi) which is merely the relative minor to boot. Common enough practice, as Bast has pointed out, to start on the sub-mediant or mediant, even, before the focus on the tonic is presented.

This idea of 'wrong key' is a notion for those who have studied theory (or only some theory) and truly think that theory and some of the basic tenets as set down in books _are ironclad rules!_. Those preliminary earlier phase 'explanations' in theory books are usually presented _prior an inevitable not much later comment on just these types of incidents or gestures._

Sometimes no matter how great the text or teacher, a student will latch on to something as "rule," thinking, "That Is That, then."

Better textbooks (and teachers) will lay down the basics in a simple and not complex manner, and quickly thereafter expand on those basics and get to the more flexible areas, as well often then presenting the myriad of completely viable and successful "exceptions" from the literature.

Music theory _is not a bundle of rules_, but whether for analysis or creating new music, _music theory is a box of tools_. Either must be used 'properly' but creatively.

My harmony 101 book had printed in its frontispiece this quote, a cautionary heads up before you began lesson no.1, even:

"Everything is in flux." ~ Herodotus​


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

One really good example of a key anomaly, or mode anomaly, I guess, is the first movement of Haydn's Symphony no. 47 in G major. The exposition is in G major but the recapitulation is in G minor. Something screwy there, though I'm not sure what part is "wrong." And what does one do about something like Mahler's Fifth, where the first movement is in C-sharp minor and the finale is in D major?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> One really good example of a key anomaly, or mode anomaly, I guess, is the first movement of Haydn's Symphony no. 47 in G major. The exposition is in G major but the recapitulation is in G minor. Something screwy there, though I'm not sure what part is "wrong." And what does one do about something like Mahler's Fifth, where the first movement is in C-sharp minor and the finale is in D major?


Actually, by the composer's own word, the "real" first movement (ie the sonata-allegro form movement) is the second, in A minor, not the first. As these two movements form the "First Part" of the symphony, they should be thought of together. Like the "Third Part", they are related by third, albeit major third rather than minor third (also like the third part, they share themes). Furthermore, the thwarted climax near the end of the A minor allegro is in fact in the target key of D major.

I: c#-a
II: D
III: F-D

Mahler said that a key designation should be left off of the work, though.


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

My use of the word "wrong" in my question was careless and unfortunate.

I'd thought that the keys attached to the names of pieces were the ones used at the beginning of the piece. Thanks to EdwardBast's response, I know that that's not always the case.

I suspect that there is some arbitrariness in this. I just discovered that Mendellsohn's Fifth Symphony is "officially" in "D major/d minor", which strikes me as really weird. I've never heard of any other symphony with such a designation. If Mendelssohn himself had simply chosen "D major", or "d minor", would anyone have tried to change it?

As a classical music fan, this is the kind of trivia I'm interested in. I posed my question in case others more knowledgeable than I could shed some light on it. I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to be. This forum is for fun. 



PetrB said:


> Exactly
> 
> The OP reminds me of a post on another forum long ago, by a supposed 'theory expert,' which asked "Why does Beethoven start this piece in the wrong key?"
> 
> ...


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## Fagotterdammerung (Jan 15, 2015)

Key designation becomes tricky from Wagner-era music onwards. A lot of key signatures used in the music 1890-1950 or so are less helpful than if no key signatures had been used at all. Their extreme chromatic nature means accidentals are the way to go for greater clarity for everyone. ( Some of Messiaen's key signatures always leap off the page as being redundant: it's rarely in the key of _anything_ for long. )


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Everthing continues to be in flux ;-)*



spradlig said:


> My use of the word "wrong" in my question was... unfortunate. I'd thought that the keys attached to the names of pieces were the ones used at the beginning of the piece. I suspect that there is some arbitrariness in this.


 Review Mr. Bast's post.



spradlig said:


> I just discovered that Mendelssohn's Fifth Symphony is "officially" in "D major/d minor", which strikes me as really weird. I've never heard of any other symphony with such a designation. If Mendelssohn himself had simply chosen "D major", or "d minor", would anyone have tried to change it?


I doubt it 



spradlig said:


> As a classical music fan, this is the kind of *trivia* I'm interested in. I posed my question in case others more knowledgeable than I could shed some light on it. I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to be. This forum is for fun.


Well, these things are not exactly *'trivia,'* (Harumph & LOL), but they are of no earthshaking importance, that is unless you are doing an analytic of a piece to hand in for a grade, and that done, really, so you 'get the theory right' for you own aims 

Sure: not every classical music fan studies music theory, some pick up a bit on their own, others do a more in-depth self-study which is sometimes as much as the tiny minority who made of it a full formal study.

Best thought of, any era (or decade, even) has its _conventions__,_ and those conventions inevitably change, very slowly or very quickly.

If you can recall the minor key pieces of a lot of the Baroque, it was then 'thought' to end a piece in the minor mode of the tonic was "unsatisfactory weak." The convention became that you finished that minor key piece on the tonic in the major mode. In the early Baroque era, the practice came by way of a few French who routinely did it, one or more hailing from Picardy (composers and music theorists, natch.) The convention of the major third in the final tonic chord is known as the Picardian third. These are littered throughout many a baroque era minor key piece, and used in (I think) _every_ minor key Bach fugue. That convention held for a while -- until it didn't  Some performers today, in concert if not on recordings, now play those Bach fugues ending in the minor, ignoring the written Picardian third. (I don't know if this has created a furor in a thimble anywhere, or not.)

When tonality became 'the next big thing,' it became the convention to not merely start on the tonic, but pretty much hammer it home before the piece began to take off into other key areas. Vivaldi often hammered it home, the tonic octave or triad repeated for a good number of bars to 'establish' the key. That sets it in the ear of the listener, and makes the later departures to other key areas more dramatic, exciting. Mozart's Symphony 29 in A starts out with the bare octave of A, then quickly starts to move elsewhere, the convention still very much there, but no longer lingered upon. The convention is already changing. His Piano Concerto in C minor ends in the minor.

Later, you have Beethoven (I do not know if he was 'the first' by any means) starting a piece in the relative minor (vi) or mediant (iii). These are still very related in the key of the Tonic, but by thirds, not the stronger and more typical relationships of IV or V to the tonic I. I am sure he heard it that way, but also was aware it was not the convention, would be a surprise, and / or keep the music fresh and interesting -- it is more than possible that for himself, as a little puzzle or game, it also had an 'amusement' factor.

Mendelssohn's _Wedding March_ for _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ starts on the Dominant seventh (v7) of the tonic. I'm sure today, barely any average listener either notices or finds it surprising or upsetting. I think since it was less expected within the conventions of that time, whether the listener 'knew theory or not,' that opening had a far greater element of surprise to the ears than it does to us.

Conventions within music, then -- which are musical fashions, actually. And they change -- routinely. As that quote I used has it: "Everything is in flux." ~ Herodotus


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