Talk:List of major/minor compositions

Beethoven Opus 109

This is not really an example, as the major and minor sections are generally regarded as two movements, not one. Kostaki mou 23:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's true; good thinking. I've listed it as "contraversial". Well done on all the examples! --Greenwoodtree 00:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your appreciative message. This has been a minor (no pun intended) obsession of mine for many years, along with the far-more-common reverse situation, so I had a ready-made collection. There are a few more I know of that I've got to research. Lalo was good for that kind of thing. I believe Kabalevsky's second cello concerto qualifies, but I'll have to check. There are also a Soler keyboard sonata (found it!!), a piece from Vivaldi's Il Pastor Fido (not to be confused with Handel's) and a work by Spohr (I think it's an Octet in G, but I'm not sure. With Spohr, of course, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.)

All the best!

Kostaki mou 05:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: Found Kabalevsky's second cello concerto in Lincoln Center library last week. Nope! It's in C minor and ends in C major.

Further update: Il Pastor Fido, though published as Vivaldi's Opus 13, is actually by one Nicolas Chédeville. Though the final section of the movement in question is in minor, it actually ends on a major chord. Kostaki mou (talk) 01:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Unrelated note: For copyrighted works, etc. in this case, it is not even necessary to look at the score to determine if they belong here. Just find a recording on YouTube or YouKu and listen. ShangKing (talk) 09:46, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Strauss's Don Juan

Is this a multi-movement work? I think it's a single-movement symphonic poem.

Kostaki mou 01:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No. ShangKing (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Pieces beginning in major and ending in a different minor key

• Beethoven - String Quartet in e, opus 59 no. 2 (Rasoumovsky Quartet No. 2), iv (C-e)
• Chopin - Ballade no. 2 (F-a)
• Schumann - No. 16 of Davidsbūndlertänze (G-b)
• Massenet - Piano Concerto (Eb-c)

Kostaki mou 22:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I've included those and restructured the page. Feel free to change my wording/structure --Greenwoodtree 10:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverse Picardy Thirds

A progression ending in a major tonic followed by a minor tonic ending the piece? This also occurs in the first movement of Alkan's symphony for solo piano (admittedly not a stand-alone movement) and I believe other works as well; it's rare, but not unique. Schissel | Sound the Note! 13:05, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a reverse Picardy third at the end of Enya's song, "Orinoco Flow" ("Sail Away"). Kostaki mou (talk) 20:02, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced?

Doesn't the music itself count as a source? Anyone with any knowledge of music who consults the scores can verify (or refute) the information here. Kostaki mou (talk) 03:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Schubert and Schumann pieces just moved

These should be moved back to the "miniatures" section. I couldn't figure out how to do it. They are individual pieces within collections, not "movements" in the same sense as those of sonatas, symphonies, etc. If these pieces should be in the "movements" section, so should the Brahms rhapsody, the Chopin nocturne and the Fibich piece, for example. Kostaki mou (talk) 01:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I have made this change. (The excerpt from the Davidsbündlertänze is admittedly a borderline case, as the preceding piece leads directly into it and it would therefore be unlikely to be performed separately.) Kostaki mou (talk) 22:49, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The whole of the Davidsbündlertänze is an interesting case for a list like this. From the second piece we gradually become aware that B minor is the main key of the work, against the G major of the opening, and we finally have it clear in the seventeenth – only for it to be supplanted by C major in the eighteenth, which is clearly not the main key, and yet had been prepared weakly with this function by the ninth piece (also ending a book and in C major). I don't think it should be included, but it certainly flirts with being major/minor while not actually being so. Double sharp (talk) 09:08, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually I would think that the pieces of the Davidsbündlertänze are about as united as those of a song cycle, really; the question is whether that is enough to move them to being movements. Certainly they only make incomplete sense at best outside their context, unlike the Chopin nocturnes. Double sharp (talk) 15:12, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

I agree. For Schumann, I think that, for example, Carnaval, Papillons, the Humoreske, and the Symphonic Etudes are close together like song cycles, but Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and Fantasiestucke can be considered externally performable as seperate movements. ShangKing (talk) 09:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Alkan - Grande Sonata, op. 33 (D-g♯)

This had been listed once before and removed by someone who called it a "borderline" case, because the first movement, though beginning in D major, had B (minor and major) as its main tonic. I fail to see how this disqualifies it. Kostaki mou (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Looks like we have different definitions of what counts! For multi-movement works, do we consider the starting key to be the overall key of the first movement (my definition), or do we consider it to be the key which the first movement starts in (yours)? (I think such cases should have their own section here.) Double sharp (talk) 09:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Bach - Cantata No. 40 (F major/F minor, (with Picardy third))

I'll leave this for the present, but a Picardy third is a major ending. If we allow this to remain, we'll have to admit a great many more works. At the very least, the mention of a Picardy third, if present, should be regarded as mandatory. Kostaki mou (talk) 01:41, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

• Moved it to "Controversial examples". Delete if you want. --212.186.175.16 (talk) 15:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Deleted. Yes, Picardy third is a major ending and disqualifies this example IMO. --Greenwoodtree 00:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
    • This would make an interesting supplementary section, though (works that are disqualified only because of a final Picardy third). I'll throw in another example of this here on the talk page: Alkan, Une fusée Op.55 (B♭-d with final Picardy third). Double sharp (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
      • Just saw your post from last year Double sharp; I think that would be a good idea in principle. I wonder though whether the examples on this supplementary section may be far more numerous than the ones in the main article (and not as easy to define - e.g. would minor-mode mixture in a few of the penultimate chords be enough to qualify?) Maybe we just list some strong examples and not try to make it exhaustive? --Greenwoodtree 13:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
        • I would personally say that such a work would qualify only if the final section was unequivocally in the minor and only the final chord turned out to be major. For instance, I don't think anyone says Mozart's KV 421 ends in the major (it just ends on a Picardy third), but I don't think anyone says Mozart's KV 406 is just a Picardy third (the entire last variation of the finale turns into major), much less KV 516 (where the entire finale is, after a short introduction). These may be the same principle that informs the Picardy third but they both involve actually vanquishing the minor mode, whereas I don't think a Picardy third alone actually does this.
        • Nevertheless, I think we need only one example to illustrate this, so I'll add one of the clearest short ones I know: Poulenc's Vinea mea electa (C♯-c♯ with Picardy third) from Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (score). (I chose this because it's short and because I quite fondly remember singing that excessivement doux soprano line... ^_^ and because not everyone has the time to look through the entire BWV 40.) Double sharp (talk) 04:52, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
          • Actually, the last four bars of Mozart's KV 421 are in major (there are changing harmonies, so it's not just the last chord). It's certainly rather sudden, but I think it does qualify as a major ending. I am against including works that end on a Picardy third here (at least, not without noting the fact). That would really open the floodgates. Besides, by that line of reasoning, works with a "reverse Picardy third" (admittedly an exceedingly rare situation) could not be said to end in minor. I would certainly say that they do. Kostaki mou (talk) 17:23, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
            • Then again, there are Picardy thirds and Picardy thirds. In some cases, they might be regarded as rather perfunctory gestures. (Note that manuscripts of some of Bach's compositions differ on whether or not to end them with a Picardy third.) This might also depend on how they are realized by the performer or on the opinion of the hearer. I don't think that the ending of K. 421 can be said to be perfunctory. There is a surprising and profound lift in mood. Kostaki mou (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
              • I suppose this depends somewhat on the listener. To me, because of the C♮ in the fourth-last bar, I think of this as V⁷/iv leading to IV and iv, and I don't feel the Picardy third until the F♯ occurs alone in the second-last bar on the last chord. There is a heavy subdominant, and in fact minor subdominant, emphasis to most of these Mozart Picardy thirds that keeps me from feeling them as a lift in mood, but rather as a sense of added seriousness and finality. I would also note the end of the Commendatore scene from Don Giovanni as another example of this. Double sharp (talk) 04:27, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
              • P.S. For an example that to me does feel like lifting the mood, I'd suggest instead KV 540, where the Picardy third appears, and the remainder has a major dominant bias instead. In this case, I feel that the key really has shifted from B minor to B major, while I feel that it hasn't really shifted completely from D minor to D major in KV 421. Double sharp (talk) 14:15, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
                • The key has indeed shifted to B major. Again, this is not technically a Picardy third. This is a passage (with changing harmonies) in the key of B major. Kostaki mou (talk) 14:54, 1 September 2016 (UTC)
                  • Yes, there really isn't a clear boundary. Since you can analyse those off-beat V chords as passing, within a larger harmonic background of a reiterated I, it is a good example of how the Picardy third is essentially just the smallest possible version of a major ending, the sort that only applies to the last chord – which actually seems like a reasonable argument to excluding all major endings, however small, and including all minor endings, however small (including "reverse Picardy thirds"). Double sharp (talk) 09:56, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

The major and the minor

It would have been nice if the list indicated whether the musical work went from minor to major, vice versa, or going back and forth continuously. -kosboot (talk) 16:18, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a list of works and movements that start in major and end in minor. Period. To indicate every shift back and forth between the two modes would make the entries unwieldy and tiresome. Kostaki mou (talk) 18:11, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

"technically two separate numbers that flow into each other and are often grouped together"

A recitative and aria should generally count as one number. Nobody is going to perform the recitative alone. The aria might conceivably, depending on the case. Kostaki mou (talk) 22:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Moved to "Movements from larger works". --Greenwoodtree 13:25, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Should Operas, Ballets, Oratorios, song cycles, etc. count?

Such extended works are not usually expected to be coherent as far as tonality is concerned (though they may be). (Symphonies, concertos, sonatas and other works in sonata form; cantatas, especially if short; are another matter as they are felt as units. Collections of piano pieces such as Schubert's Moments Musicaux or Schumann's Kreisleriana would not be felt as such units. Suites may or may not be. (Some are collections of excerpts, others form more coherent wholes. I don't mean this as adverse criticism of either kind.) There are borderline cases, of course. Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Kostaki mou (talk) 00:19, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Good question. In general, I think that if such works begin in major and end in minor on the same keynote, this will (probably) imply a tonal coherence that justifies inclusion on the list. Those that end in a minor key with a different tonic, I'd leave out (there may be exceptions though). --Greenwoodtree 13:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

This made me think about Musorgsky's Khovanshchina, which I added to the list some time ago. On one hand, it starts in E major and ends in G-sharp minor (well, technically A-flat minor, but written more sanely), and actually, there is no scene that starts and ends in the same key. On the other hand, there are clear extramusical associations between the keys used and what is going on in the plot (see for example David Brown's book on the composer; this generally reflects a sharp/flat principle, although privately I wonder how much it really means given that Musorgsky seems quite content often to go so far down the circle of fifths that he goes back up the other side, and Brown has to somehow tell which parts are "really" in a sharp key and which are "actually" in an extreme flat key). I've not yet made my mind up about this one. In a case like Mozart, where the finales always start and end in the same key (well, excluding the teenage works), and the operas always end in the key they started in, I'd unequivocally support the inclusion of whatever examples there may be (although, come to think of it, I don't think there are any in his case). Double sharp (talk) 14:34, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the changing-tonic works in particular need to be treated on a case-by-case basis, but certainly if there are clear extramusical associations with the keys - particularly the progression from the starting major key to the finishing minor key - I think it should qualify for the list. --Greenwoodtree 20:03, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Borderlines

I think there is a sort of unspoken but fairly clear prohibition of cases where an opening major chord is then explained in terms of the following minor key, which is why I removed the Danse macabre. I am not quite as sure whether to exclude works that pretend to start in the wrong key (e.g. Haydn's string quartet Op. 33 No. 1 and Brahms' clarinet quintet Op. 115, both of which begin in what could be D major but is later retrospectively understood as B minor), but I think this should equally be excluded since the opening major key has never actually been established, just floated as a possibility. Double sharp (talk) 04:45, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

Agreed on both points; looks like the list will have to be trimmed a bit. Your mention of cases where the opening major chord is just a V makes me consider eliminating the Carmen Seguidilla (I don't think F# is really tonicized at the beginning; the opening F# major chord is expanded by E# diminished seventh - which could be understood as VII/V in B minor); this is in contrast to works like the Lalo Rhapsodie Norvegienne, in which A major is actually temporarily established at the start. I'd say get rid of the Borodin symphony movement too (the D# in the first bar does nothing to establish B major, especially as it follows the minor second (C), which makes a reading of V/iv more credible). --Greenwoodtree 10:54, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I question the inclusion of the 2nd movement of Bizet's Symphony in C major. It is stated to begin in F major and end in A minor; but I don't think that's really true.

The bulk of the movement is in A minor. It does begin with an F-major chord, but that is just the start of a short series of chords that converges on A minor, and F major is never established as a key.

To be more precise, there is a short introduction with the first few bars containing the follow chords in this order, one per bar: F major; D minor; C major; A minor; E major - followed by a short passage where various instruments play broken octave patterns doing down the scale, E D C B A - all of which is clearly preparing for the main part of the music to start in a very solid A minor.

I'm not sure if I should remove this from the list, as others may not agree with my analysis; but I note it here, in case anyone else likes to consider it.

Thanks.M.J.E. (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

unfinished works

It may not be quite fair to include Haydn's Op. 103 as an example because it is major/minor only because it is unfinished; we only have a slow movement in B♭ major and a minuet in D minor. The sketches for the first movement clearly indicate that it was to have been in D minor, so Haydn cannot have intended it to be major/minor. At the very least this needs explanation. Otherwise, we'd have to add examples like Schubert's Allegretto D 346 (which starts in C major and breaks off after an F minor cadence in the middle of a page). Double sharp (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with this - and I think the Schubert D. 279 should be dropped too. Regarding D. 840, on the one hand, pianists often perform the two completed movements as a pair (C major - C minor), but on the other hand, I don't think it's likely that Schubert intended the projected last movement of this sonata to end in the minor (and there are sketches for the third movement). I guess it could stay in the "Borderline" section --Greenwoodtree 10:59, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

There is also an unfinished draft of a projected finale to D 840, whose opening theme makes it very clear that it's in C major from the first bar. It is of course not certain if Schubert would have used this sketch in the end if he had returned to the sonata, but it is probably fair to say that during the period he was working on it he envisaged a major conclusion.

The case of D 279 is less clear, as there are no blank pages following the A minor minuet in the autograph. Schubert may have changed his mind about this, actually: the autograph of D 537 is headed "5^te Sonate", which would chronologically imply that he treated D 157 and D 279 as finished if we are not to posit some lost works. (It would also have to include the unfinished D 459, but since the finale breaks off at the end of the development he may have reasonably thought of it as as good as finished.) Yet he numbers D 566 and D 568 on their autographs as "Sonate I" and "Sonate II", as if he were disowning his previous efforts that were not tonally closed; after D 557 we never find any progressively tonal works from his pen with the exception of the songs. Given this complicated situation, I think it is fair to include D 279 on the list and exclude D 840. Double sharp (talk) 08:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Criteria

Partly based on these discussions on the talk page I have expanded on the criteria for works to exclude on the main page. --Greenwoodtree 11:38, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Couperin piece

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_major/minor_compositions&oldid=850171398 Is there an implied Da Capo? It is very common in baroque dance pieces to have contrasting major and minor sections, with a Da Capo back to the beginning, but the piece in question is not a dance piece. ShangKing (talk) 03:40, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

An interesting case: ending on the dominant

Stirb, Lieb' und Freud!, No. 2 of Schumann's Kerner cycle Op. 35, begins in A-flat major and ends in F minor – but inconclusively on the dominant chord, which is of course major. I am inclined to say that this should count, but others might disagree. No. 9 (Frage) does the same thing (beginning in E-flat major and ending on the dominant of C minor). Double sharp (talk) 06:29, 24 July 2019 (UTC)