Aalice.452 net.music utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!chico!harpo!mhtsa!alice!rhm Thu Jan 28 22:44:35 1982 Re: discussion time I did make a valiant attempt to assign that music to a tonic key in a theory course some years ago, and lost. There is really no plausible way to assign a key to the music or even to refer to it as tonal music. There is no difficulty in analyzing it as modal music. Brahms clearly intended the opening to be heard and interpreted as a theme in C-major, but you soon learn that the real tonal center is E. Received opinion (Piston's Harmony, e.g.) calls it E Phrygian. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.