The casual listener may not know what key a piece of music has been written in, but the composer made that choice for a reason – whether practical (musical phrases can fit instruments better when played in one key over another) or just because that’s the way the harmonies were imagined in the first place. Each key has a bit of a personality, and the composer will match the material to the key that suits it. Here are several in the Key of C minor… can you identify them?
The Stormy Key of C Minor
To check your answers, just click and drag over the blank area below:
- Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
- Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
- Brahms: Symphony No. 1
- Saint-Saens: Symphony No. 3 “Organ”
- Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
- Chopin: Prelude Op. 28, no. 20
- Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
- Mozart: Mass in C Minor, Kyrie
- Bach: Prelude No. 2 from Well Tempered Clavier, Book I
- Bach: Suite for Unaccompanied Cello no. 5, Allemande
- Schubert: Symphony No. 4, “Tragic”
- (Beethoven: Symphony No. 5)
