I am currently learning Vivaldi's Oboe Sonata in C minor and the key signature only has 2 flats - the A flats are added each time as an accidental. This has been puzzling me for several weeks but neither my teacher nor the people who read the oboe thread have been able to give me an explanation. (My teacher said nobody had ever asked him this before).

There is an editor's note in my edition which says that they have chosen to keep the "doric notation," used by Vivaldi (and there is a facsimile of Vivaldi's manuscript at the end which only has 2 flats) so I am assuming that the "doric notation" is probably the reason why there are only two flats but am none the wiser as to what this actually means.

My hazy notion of modes was that Dorian started on the second note (so it would be like playing a scale of C major but starting on D), so does this mean Vivaldi was starting B flat major on C when he was composing and that it is a modern idea to call it C minor? And was this common in the Baroque period?

Aye aye, fit like?
Doric is fit we a spek up 'ere in the deen. A dinna ken fit yer on aboot a this dorian claik quine!

Hmmm..it would be Dorian if it was 'C minor' but with two flats in the key sig - but the Abs wouldn't have been added throughout...

*is puzzled*



Edit - having done a tiny bit of research (all my tired brain can cope with) it would appear that 'Doric notation' does refer to this way of notating the key sig of moda pieces, which I'm very familiar with (but not under that name).

Certainly a piece which has two flats and which ends on C/has the tonic as C is Dorian. The Dorian mode can be likened to the natural minor with a raised 6th - the last flat in a minor key sig is the 6th, therefore it is not necessary to write this last flat.

What puzzles me is the fact that every (?) A is made into an Ab by means of an accidental...

Sorry, too tired and too late to be able to think straight any more!

If it was proper Dorian there would be A naturals and not A flats (C scale but with B flat key signature). It would sound minor but with a raised sixth note. However he has made it sound more like C minor by putting in A flats and (if there are B flats too) it is effectively the Aeolian mode (natural minor).

Would this be an example of modal music gradually changing to the modern minors (and majors) ?

I'm guessing !

Edit: I wrote this before I read Cyrilla's edited post above !

Frustratingly, I recall having seen this way of writing minor key signatures (i.e., with one less flat that you would expect in the key signature) quite often in baroque music, but I can't quote a single example off hand. I'm pretty sure that even Bach got up to it. But as I say, my recollection is unback-upable, as I can't point you towards any examples at the moment. Sorry!

Ah - a quick look a Wikipedia produced this:
The famous "Dorian" Toccata and Fugue by Bach is so named because, although it is in D minor, there is no key signature, implying that it is in the key of C. Instead, the B flats necessary for D minor are written as accidentals as and when necessary. [...] Baroque music written in minor keys often was written with a key signature with fewer flats than we now associate with their keys; for example, movements in C minor often had only two flats (because the A♭ would frequently have to be sharpened to A natural in the ascending melodic minor scale, as would the B♭).

So there you are.

the Marcello Oboe concerto in Dminor I have (peters edition) has this, and half of the Bs are natural, but quite a lot has an accidental to make it flat.

Yes - I remember seeing a few examples of minor 'keys' with fewer flats in the key sig than we would normally use today.

Fascinating stuff

The Dorian mode can be likened to the natural minor with a raised 6th

(wonderful 'pull' between the sharpened sixth and the flattened third)

Throughout is a slight exaggeration. Having done a quick count of the 1st Adagio movement the proportion is roughly 75% A flat to 25% A natural and the A naturals tend to come with a B natural (which suggested for me a melodic minor).

Interestingly (or confusingly I'm not sure) in the second Allegro movement, the first two-thirds of the movement has almost exclusively A naturals and also a lot of C#, suggesting (presumably) that it modulates into something else here (there are no C# at all in the first movement). In the last part of the second movement the C# disappears and the Ab returns and it finishes on a C.

The third movement (also a slow movement) has about half A flat and half A natural.

I haven't yet looked at the fourth movement.

Oo I love threads like this (I lead a boring life!!). These are the ones that send me off to my music books to look it all up for myself, and I find it fascinating to learn something new.

My Oxford Companion to Music indicates that that 6th of the Dorian modal scale was often flattened in order to avoid the interval of the augmented 4th (in kerioboe's example this would be Eb to A). So they flattened the 6th (to Ab). The info comes under a heading of the Break-up of the Modal System, and says that the recognition of this 'added note' made it possible to notate a piece of music a 5th lower or a 4th higher without disturbing the relative positions of the notes. Shall have a look in Grove online a bit later to see what that says.