Jay Gatsby – In the Hall of the Mountain King – Cliff Barnes from Dallas (old TV drama) – Hotel California – all associated with the key of B minor, according to a quite fun series put together by CBC Radio – The Signature Series. (Can’t believe that after ALL THESE YEARS of writing “Key Signature” on assignment sheets, and being for the most part pretty good at spelling, I STILL have to think about the 2nd vowel in that word).
Different keys are given different personalities. That’s not new. You can read about it in a $95 book called A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. Or you can listen to a series of 5-minutes audio clips with narration by Paolo Pietropaolo that anthropomorphize the keys and feature some of the world’s most-loved, mostly classical pieces. Included on the page for each key are historical quotes about the keys, likely real and fictional characters that represent the key, the notes in the key signAture, and the audio clip. It looks like this is going to be a regular weekly series. Four keys are already up, with the promise of more to come.
Click here for B Minor - The Dark Romantic - “a fatalist… on any day the world could be heaven or it could be hell… underneath that glum exterior he’s a dreamer, a lover of beauty… sometimes he forgets himself and allows a glimmer of hope…but there’s always a letdown…”
