“There’s no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor.” ‑ Cole Porter
This two-week series comes from a listener who wrote asking about the different scales in Western music. You may know of major and minor scales, and hear the change of mood that composers can achieve by transitioning between them, but there are five other scales, or modes, we hear all the time. You can hear modal shifts in works by Monteverdi and in the late symphonies of Beethoven, Schubert, and many more. Come with us and explore the vibrant palette of colors that composers can use to set and change moods. How strange the change?
How Strange the Change from Major to Minor, Part I
