Thread - Definitely F# major, not minor.

Hi MJE, I switched the key from major to minor this morning, but I am not against switching it back again. However, the case for the major mode would be so much better if one of the main themes of the work – the one which opens it in fact, i.e. the viola melody which permeates movement I in various guises and returns in movement V, at the climax – wasn’t pretty unambiguously in F♯ minor, even with the subsequent tonal wandering that it goes through before arriving at the splendid F♯ major tune.
The main feeling one gets is that if it’s a major key movement, then there’s an awful lot of melodic D naturals and A naturals (even perhaps some of the ones spelt as G double sharp!) which are contradicting the evidence of one’s eyes that the music notated in the key signature of six sharps is actually in F♯ major – even without the passages which appear to be notated correctly in the tonic minor. However, Mahler’s chromatic language is certainly advanced enough that a claim that there is enough ‘major’ in the work is probably just as shaky as establishing the case for the minor. It would be more accurate to say the piece is in F♯ but ambiguously minor/major/wandering all over the place/minor/major… and unambiguously finishing in major at the end of the movements which count.
My argument earlier today was more to do with the other claim, that there is a strong support for the claim that the order of movements is up for grabs – there is far, far less evidence for an authoritative reordering than say, there is for the Sixth, which was actually published and performed in two different orders, with the composer’s direct fiat. There is no strong case that the apparent uncertainty regarding the disposition of movements 2 and 4 is anything more than the movements being tried in alternating positions at the earlier draft stages as the symphony developed to its full five movement size, possibilities that had been both considered and rejected by the time Mahler reached the stage of proceeding to the full score partitur, in which there is no ambiguity about the first three movements – I. Adagio, II. Scherzo, III. Purgatorio – and we are left with two movements with roman numerals IV. and V., the latter bearing the title ‘Finale’. Seriously, this is pretty impressively clear for an unfinished work.
The only things that I can see which would introduce any doubt are the marking on the partitur of movement II. that it is a Scherzo – Finale; but if so, what then is the page of full score of the Purgatorio… chop suey? And there are an impressive number of erasures on the short score of movement IV, but there’s an important thing about them: they’ve all been erased. For example: the second of the erasures on the short score of movement IV, ‘Finale 4’ seems to imply a four-movement work, which in turn would mean one of the movements was added at a considerably late stage, to expand the symphony to its five-movement guise; perhaps the Purgatorio was the last movement to be added? It doesn’t particular matter which, because we have five distinct movements which are clearly intended for the same work, so that a movement entitled Finale 4 seems highly unlikely to be the final movement of a five-movement work. Regards, Philip Legge _{@ © talk} 00:45, 17 December 2013 (AEST)

     By the way, Philip, where have I heard or read of you? Your name is definitely familiar to me, and I have encountered you somewhere - but I can't quite recall where!

Dear Michael,

perhaps you might have seen my work elsewhere on the Wiki, where I’ve contributed performing editions of large choral works e.g. Mozart’s Great C minor mass; Fauré’s Requiem; Tallis’ Spem in alium… there’s obviously a list here which might jog your memory. :-)

Anyway, I think you’ve misinterpreted my initial statement to suggest I am supporting a proposed key of F# minor in preference to F# major — I am not. The simple fact is the initial contributor to the page specified the key as F♯ major, and the next contributor to arrive said F♯ minor seemed more appropriate, so in Wikipedia parlance I decided to ‘be bold’ and altered the page.

I did not do this from a position of complete ignorance of Mahler’s œuvre or of symphonic tradition. The key in which a symphony begins is usually given precedence over the key in which it ends, and most of Mahler’s symphonies begin in one key and finish in another. The key of the opening is sometimes given far more weight than is really warranted, and I can’t think of a better example than the Fifth Symphony, in which (somewhat like the Tenth) there’s a long exposed solo instrumental line before the orchestra enters with its opening paragraph: here, the trumpet melody and the key signature strongly suggests C♯ minor. However, the first chord heard at the orchestral entry is A major, and in terms of the harmonic direction of the entire paragraph I’d actually suggest this chord is II♭, which resolves to the tonic minor via V♭ followed by VI♭♭ (!). This novel spelling seems to have been because Mahler didn’t want to write chords of Cx major followed by D♯ major en route to the actual tonic key of the opening orchestral music — G♯ minor.

Now as a general principle, no one ever suggests that the Fifth starts in G♯ minor and finishes in D major. Even with the trumpet being a transposing instrument and its notation making the opening triadic motifs spell out D♯ minor on the page, the usual motto is that the symphony starts in C♯ minor and finishes in D major. If we apply this logic to the Tenth, it is clear the symphony does not start in F♯ major, which is only firmly established at bar 16. That’s usually well over a minute into the piece before that happens, twice as long as the trumpet solo in the Fifth!

I think there’s probably a huge amount of different ways people ‘hear’ the harmonic implications of the first fifteen bars. You suggested you don’t perceive a strong sense of tonality in the opening, or anything more than a vague impression; I think I can hear one, in at least the first eight bars. (I personally can’t perceive the hyper-sharp regions which Mahler wanders off into by about bar 10 as being so far around the circle of fifths that everything has become single or double-sharped. However, that isn’t where the symphony starts.) The first bar starts with a strong implication of B minor: the quaver upbeat from c♯ up to d♮, followed by a descent to b♮ (this three-note pitch relationship is ubiquitous in the Purgatorio), then up to g♮, strongly suggests scale degrees of II – iii♭ – I – vi♭. However the melody descends back to the d in the next bar via f♯ and e♯, and then returns to b again by way of an obvious leading note. I tend to hear this as being an actual tonic of F♯ with flattened seconds and sixths, rather than B minor, but whatever it is, the structure of the mode and chromatic inflections is more typical of minor modes, not major, and the melody is thus emphasising the semitones above (I – ii♭, V – vi♭) and below {{IV♯ – V, VII♮ – I}}) the tonal centres.

Similarly, while I’m aware of the harmonic and melodic function of enharmonic notes, the feeling of the Gx at the entry of the F♯ major theme in the diminished chord on the third beat of bar 16 is that it’s also momentarily echoing F♯ minor via the Gx – A♮ respelling, and Mahler’s chord spacing being optimal to permit it to function like a minor third, but is denied by the contrary motion from C♯ to D♯ underneath.

Anyway, that sort of discussion could tie us up in knots forever. When I went to edit the page, I was tied down to entering either major or minor. I would have preferred to enter neither, or minor/major as indicative of the direction in which the symphony moves. Unfortunately, the template system here for key signatures isn’t quite advanced enough to handle progressive tonality and more than one key at a time; it also requires that the major or minor modality of the tonic key be implicitly stated.

Now, most often I’ve seen this symphony referred to as being in F♯ — with NO major or minor specified; and very occasionally, as F♯ minor/major (or variations on that theme, like F♯ minor–major, or f♯–F♯) indicating the shift from minor to major tonalities across the symphony as a whole, as well as frequently happens in miniature from say the 15-bar Andante introduction to the Adagio proper of the first movement. (If memory serves, Grove’s Dictionary lists many of the Mahler symphonies in two keys on the basis of progressive tonality, so the Second is given as c–E♭, the Third as d–D, the Fifth as c♯–D, and so on. The key of the Tenth is given as f♯/F♯.) F♯ minor is also the principal key of the second movement, if I recall correctly, though it wanders all over the place, but like movements I and V finishes firmly in F♯ major.

So as I said above, I’m prepared to switch it back, but I’m not convinced either the major or the minor modalities are appropriate singly.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Sallen112, I don’t think any of those completions could possibly be uploaded. Cooke died in 1976 and Wheeler in 1977, so the absolute earliest that any of Wheeler’s editions could be submitted is the year 2028. Cooke on the other hand had three co-authors, two of whom are still very much alive, so his work won’t appear hear for well over fifty years, unless Faber Music miraculously have a generous turn of heart and release their $100 full scores for free on the Internet. (Sorry for the obvious sarcasm… it’s so not going to happen.)

Regards, Philip