Expert: David Froom - 9/19/2009

Question
Hello, I'm trying to distinguish the key signatures of a few pieces, and I'm not sure of these:

Armenian Dances Part 1 Mvt. 3 Hoy, My Nazan (Alfred Reed)
Puszta Part 1 (Jan Van der Roost)
Rhapsody in Blue (Gershwin)
Carmina Burana:II. Fortune plango vulnera (Orff)
Symphony  no.2:III. Apollo Unleashed

I do not have access to the sheet music, and I'd like to know if they are major, minor(natural, melodic or harmonic), or in a different mode. Thanks for your help!

Answer
You should say that "Apollo Unleashed" is by Frank Ticheli.  This one ends in Bb major, and seems to begin with a long section in F that works as a dominant preparation.  I didn't study the whole thing, but it seems that it doesn't really settle in Bb for sure until the last chord, though Bb is implied throughout.

Carmina Burana, second movement is pretty solidly in d minor throughout.

Rhapsody in Blue is trickier, as it begins in Bb and ends in Bb, but is hardly there throughout the rest of the piece.

Puszta is new to me.  Not sure what you mean by Part 1, but (on YouTube) I found a bunch of performances of the first movement, which is in c minor.

I also don't know Reed's Armenian Dances (I'm not really a band guy).  I found a bunch of performances on YouTube, but none that are clearly labeled as Part 1 Mvt. 3.  If you can find a performance, and point me towards the specific place i can find that movement, I'll take a listen and identify the key for you.

As for whether these are strictly major, minor, or a different mode -- that's a trickier question.  We're dealing with 20th century music, which if tonal, probably isn't strictly traditionally so.  That's true for all of these pieces.  As for the minor scales -- those aren't really different modes.  They are three scales that each expresses some part of what happens in a piece that is in minor.  Minor is just more complicated.  I don't think any of these works is strictly modal -- but I didn't really study them.  I doubt that the composers would refer to them as modal.

David Froom