Why D-Flat Major Should Be One of Our Favorite Keys

 by Janet Horvath

“What? D-Flat Major?” Most string players wail, “that’s a key signature with FIVE FLATS!”

I don’t blame them. It’s so much more difficult to play in tune on string instruments without the resonance of the open strings.

Pianists, though, will be elated. They get to play on all of the black keys. Numerous composers have used D-flat major to depict lush, dreamy sounds, and to explore the richness and depth of expression imaginable in this key.

Perhaps you know that many composers associated specific emotions with certain keys. The key of E-flat major is a case in point, a key that is considered heroic. Think Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 The Eroica, Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, a Hero’s Life, and dozens of string quartets and symphonies by Haydn, Sibelius, Elgar, Dvořák, Mozart, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Mahler.

Frédéric Chopin © Getty Image

One of the most famous piece for piano in D-flat is the Chopin Prelude Op. 28 No. 15 “Raindrop.” Chopin did not ascribe the name to this prelude. It begins hushed and pensive, and the affecting melody leaves us in a subdued mood. It turns suspenseful, becoming more chordal and powerful. The right hand continues the inexorable rhythm and generates the feeling of inevitability with its repeated and steady A-flats that seem to imitate raindrops. But the opening melodic line returns reassuring us, and the piece resolves peacefully. Whatever you imagine when you hear it, there is no denying the emotions generated.

Jean Sibelius

Romance in D-flat is an exquisite piece by Sibelius. Upon first hearing, you might think it’s a work of Chopin and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s amorous with flourishes and emotions you would associate with Chopin. Sibelius is not necessarily known as a solo piano composer. Ten pieces make up Sibelius’ Opus 24, composed between 1895 and 1903, and they are stunning. Diverging from his huge symphonic works puzzled Sibelius’ children too who asked him why he wrote these solo piano works, he responded, “In order for you to have bread and butter.”    

Sergei Prokofiev © Esoterica Art Agency 2018

Written in 1901 as a birthday gift, the D-flat major Romance has been published and performed separately. The Andantino opens with a two-bar chordal introduction in the right hand with a lyrical cello-like melody entering in the left hand. It’s gorgeous. The middle section becomes vibrant and agitated with octaves and chords marked with accents on each note, and the instruction, “forte crescendo possible.” A cadenza with rapid notes, is breathtakingly dramatic. The magnificent resonance achieved in this piece is due in part to the pianist flying all over the black keys.

Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 10 was composed in 1911, and is dedicated to the Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, the “dreaded Tcherepnin” with whom Prokofiev worked at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Although the piano concerto is only fifteen minutes long, in one movement, Prokofiev marked eleven distinct sections of varying tempos and disposition. From charm to the grotesque, every mood is depicted. The piece begins as it ends with an expansive, yearning, and deliberate theme in D-flat major with heart-thumping punctuation in the timpani. Electrifying octaves in the piano bring the piece to a finish.

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11 is a work for mixed chorus and piano or organ, with lyrics by the 17th-century poet Racine. A version for strings and harp is breathtaking. The text “Verbe égal au Très-Haut” or Word One with the Highest, is from a Latin hymn “O Light of Light” attributed to the fourth century bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose. The refined and sublime piece hints at the music of the Requiem Fauré composed later in life. Only 20 years old when he composed this piece, we are assured of his position as one of the greatest composers of French choral music when we hear the Cantique. A dazzling lilting melody opens the piece. The chorus enters with the lowest voices first and gradually expands to include the higher voices. After another interlude of the instruments alone, Fauré continues this technique and we experience a ravishing series of colors, dynamics, and textures, enhanced by the resounding key of D-flat.

Antonín Dvořák

Dvořák Scherzo Capriccioso Op.66 B.131, is an orchestral work composed in 1883. The D-flat major key allows the composer to explore not only the Czech folk music we usually expect but a more dark, opaque, and restless mood. Featuring a full complement of instruments such as the harp, triangle, English horn, and bass clarinet, Dvořák achieves a brilliant variety of tone colors and wondrous melodies, his forte. The English horn solo is especially poignant.

Amy Beach © Amybeach.org

Some composers actually see colors when he or she hears certain keys or pitches, a condition called synesthesia, in other words the perception of one sense through another. Amy Beach was one of these composers and D-flat major, for Beach, represented the color violet, traditionally associated with wealth, royalty, and the divine. The first section of her 1925 work Canticle of the Sun a cantata for chorus, soloists, and orchestra Op. 123, sets a thirteenth century text by St. Francis of Assisi. The piece begins Lento con Maesta, with the feelings of searching, of hesitancy, and then bursts into the key of D-flat major—the strong D-flat major chord used on the word “God” imbuing the word with wonder and veneration. The use of the key here is powerful as well as opulent.

I’m convinced and I hope you are too. D-flat major should be considered one of our favorite keys!

How Inspiration Strikes

By Georg Predota, Interlude

Composers tend to be a peculiar lot, particularly as it pertains to the best and most conducive circumstances in which they compose their best music. Of course, reports of that nature tend to be highly anecdotal, but more often then not, they do contain at least a kernel of truth.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven on a Walk by Berthold Genzmer

As the American painter, artist and photographer Chuck Close famously stated, “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just show up and go to work.” Beethoven, for example, went for vigorous walks through the forests and hills surrounding Vienna after lunch. He always carried with him a pencil and a small pocket sketchbook, recording any musical ideas that would thus come to his mind.

Gustav Mahler

Mahler’s Komponierhäuschen

Gustav Mahler not only locked himself in various Komponierhäuschen (Composer’s cottages), he also took 3 to 4-hour walks after lunch, recording his musical impressions in a notebook.

Benjamin Britten

For Benjamin Britten, afternoon walks were “where I plan out what I’m going to write in the next period at my desk”.

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss preferred to compose in his garden cottage until lunchtime, when it was time to head for the local restaurant.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Solitary walking, however, was clearly not the only source of inspiration for great musical minds. Gluck, it was said, wrote best when he was sitting in the middle of a field.

Gioachino Rossini

Rossini was most productive when he had partaken of “a good flask of wine.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart at the Pooltable by Oswald Charles Barret

It is said that Mozart composed his best music while playing billiards

Giovanni Paisiello

Paisiello enjoyed composing while lying in bed.

Antonio Sacchini

A pretty woman by his side, and his pet cats playing around his feet was a prerequisite for Sacchini to write well.

Giuseppe Sarti

© inhabitat.com

Sarti preferred to sit in a dark gloom lighted only by a single candle.

Domenico Cimarosa

Cimarosa composed his best works surrounded by a dozen of gabbling friends, with light conversation inspiring his music.

Étienne Méhul

Mćhul, on the other hand, trying to get away from the noise and bustle of the city. Once, he went to the Chief of Police in Paris and asked to be imprisoned in the Bastille.

Richard Wagner

And let’s not forget Richard Wagner, who liked his silken undies and heavy perfume in order to be properly inspired. He also needed perfect quiet, and nobody was allowed entrance to his study—it is reported that even his meals were passed to him through a trap door. Believe it or not!

What is the Curse of the Ninth -

– and does it really exist?

Beethoven, Mahler and Dvořák all died after writing their ninth symphonies.Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

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It’s a superstition that plagued some of the great composers of the 19th and 20th centuries – but is there any truth in it?

The ‘Curse of the Ninth’ is a superstition that developed during the late Romantic period – some people believed that composers were fated to die during or after writing their ninth symphony.

On the surface, the theory seems like it might have some basis in fact: Beethoven, Schubert, Dvořák and Vaughan Williamsall died after completing their Ninths, Anton Bruckner died with his Ninth unfinished – and Mahler contracted pneumonia while writing his tenth.

But like all good conspiracy theories, the Curse of the Ninth has been debunked and dismissed. Here’s the real story.

Gustav Mahler hatched a plan to beat the Curse of the Ninth. Picture: Getty

It all started with Mahler… kind of

Gustav Mahler, who wrote some of the most glorious symphonies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was one of the first composers to believe in a superstition surrounding ninth symphonies. 

But Mahler was a little *too* obsessed with the idea. Seeing how fate had struck down Beethoven and Bruckner before him, he came up with a cunning plan to beat the curse.

After completing his eighth symphony, Mahler wrote a piece of music (Das Lied von der Erde) that was, in essence, a symphony – but he refused to call it one.

He then finished his ninth symphony and set to work on his tenth – but then he contracted pneumonia while writing it and died in 1911, aged 51, apparently proving the superstition correct. 

But Mahler didn’t know about Schubert, Dvořák... or any of the others

Arnold Schoenberg, whose music was heavily influenced by Mahler, described the Curse of the Ninth in an essay on the composer: “He who wants to go beyond it must pass away. It seems as if something might be imparted to us in the Tenth which we ought not yet to know, for which we are not ready. Those who have written a Ninth stood too close to the hereafter.”

There are a few issues with this theory. Because of the time he was writing, the only victims of the ‘curse’ that Mahler would have been aware of were Beethoven and Bruckner.

He wouldn’t have known about Schubert’s nine symphonies – because what is now called his Symphony No. 9 (the ‘Great’) was known as his Seventh in Mahler’s time.

Plus, Dvořák’s Ninth ‘New World’ Symphony wasn’t even considered a ‘ninth’ in Mahler’s time. It was published as his Symphony No. 5, before four extra symphonies appeared after Dvořák’s death. And Spohr – who is often included on the ‘curse’ list – wrote and completed a tenth symphony, but withdrew it.

Beethoven died before he could release his tenth symphony. Picture: Getty

Even Bruckner doesn’t fully qualify; he died before completing his (unfinished) Ninth Symphony – which brings his total symphonies to just eight.

But lots of composers have written more than nine symphonies...

Yes. The main snag with the Curse of the Ninth is that it only really makes sense if you concentrate on a relatively small number of 19th and 20th-century composers, omitting composers like Shostakovich, who wrote 15 symphonies, and Heitor Villa-Lobos, who wrote 12.

There’s also the most famous Classical composers: Mozart, for instance, wrote 41 symphonies, while Haydn wrote a whopping 104 – 106 if you count the unnumbered ones (there was no stopping that man).

And then there’s Leif Segerstam’s casual 327 symphonies…

The Curse of the Nine is a great story, and it probably fuelled a lot of the angst behind Mahler’s heart-wrenching symphonies. But perhaps it’s best to treat it as a superstition.