Talk:Ludus Tonalis

Dubious paragraph
I don't know enough about this to be sure of my ground, but this looks odd. Does anyone have access to the source (Mark Vignal's liner notes for the Richter recording) to check what it's actually saying?


 * Ludus Tonalis can be thought of as the most direct application of Hindemith's theory that the twelve tones of the equally tempered scale all relate to a single one of them (called a tonic or keynote). The affinity of each note with the keynote is directly related to its position on the harmonic scale. In this system, the major-minor duality is meaningless and the practice of modulation is dropped.

My concerns: the first two sentences appear to me to be simply nonsensical; maybe they have some meaning which I'm missing, but if so then it needs to be more clearly explained. And the claim in the third sentence that the "practice of modulation is dropped" is surely just incorrect. Hindemith's concept of tonality may not be the classical one, but he certainly moves between keys. This is obvious from listening to it, but for a further opinion see the Hindemith article, which says of his music
 * Like most tonal music, it is centred on a tonic and modulates from one tonal centre to another

JBritnell (talk) 20:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid I do not have access to those liner notes, but the two quoted sentences do make perfect sense to me. It does seem to me that "harmonic scale" at the end of the first sentence could be re-phrased, or at least explained a little further. It is possible that the original actually said "harmonic series", but Hindemith's scale of harmonic relations does not map exactly onto the harmonic series, even if there is a strong relationship. The issue of modulation depends on one's theoretical point of view. Hindemith came to think along much the same lines as Schenker, that every piece has one, central tonic, and that what is commonly called "modulation" is merely a temporary local emphasis on some other note, which retains (on a global scale) its subordinate position with respect to the overall tonic. Clearly, Hindemith did not write the Wikipedia article on himself, or it would not use that language (at least, Hindemith would not have used it by the time he wrote the Craft of Musical Composition).—Jerome Kohl (talk) 21:56, 17 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks; if you're happy then I daresay it's fine. I had not even understood that this is supposed to be a theory of musical analysis. I read it as referring to some absolute relationship between harmonic scales and keynotes. Probably I was just being dim, though I'm still not convinced that the paragraph says quite what it means. (On reflection, I think the problem is that the expression "relate to" doesn't convey anything unless the nature of the relationship is explained.) JBritnell (talk) 18:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * That is a good point. The various relationships of the eleven other notes to the tonic are not easily summed up in a word or two, but certainly should be explained in some way. The sequence of keys in the Ludus Tonalis (C – G – F – A – E – ... – D♭ – B – F♯) displays them, but that is a little short of explanation. Let me have a think about this, and see if I can come up with something. Of course, I will also have to come up with a source, since I doubt that those record-liner notes supply such details.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:14, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Scope of the keys
We say "The piece, which comprises all 12 major and/or minor keys, ....", and it's listed @ our article Music written in all major and/or minor keys.

Yet the keys actually listed both here and at the IMSLP entry for the work are major keys only: C, G, F, A, E, E♭, A♭, D, B♭, D♭, B, F♯.

So, does the work travel into the minor keys at all, and if so, where do they appear in the key sequence? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:21, 26 May 2023 (UTC)