Tonality

I have always thought that in the equal-temperement system every key sounded the same. But recently, I have been seeing many references to the different emotions and aspects of every tonality in books and in the internet. Afterall, does the key affect the music whatsoever from the audience's perspective?

12 minutes ago, Rômulo Mello said:

in the equal-temperement system every key sounded the same.

They do. Composers like to be imaginative. But there is a historical tendency for certain keys to convey different emotions due to older tuning systems sounding different for each key.

Also, is composing not inhenrently imagination? If a composer feels that a certain key will convey their music better due to its perceived emotion, then that has an impact on the art. (Also, some instruments do sound more resonant in particular keys - open string keys for the strings, and the flat keys for the brass).

Ah, thanks for clearing it up.

14 hours ago, Rômulo Mello said:

I have always thought that in the equal-temperement system every key sounded the same. But recently, I have been seeing many references to the different emotions and aspects of every tonality in books and in the internet. Afterall, does the key affect the music whatsoever from the audience's perspective?

 

No. From the audience's perspective it makes no difference. A good example of this is how you have different transpositions for lieder depending on the singer's range. So the tenors get a version, the basses get a version, etc. It's all the same music, just adjusted up or down so it fits. Obviously the keys are all changed by that point.

https://imslp.org/wiki/Liederkreis,_Op.39_(Schumann,_Robert)

Here's an example where you have "high voice," "medium" and "low voice" versions. You can argue this isn't exactly the same as the "composer intended," but people perform the other versions too, so it really doesn't matter. It's also extremely common to transpose stuff for singers in general and this was also true when people didn't use equal temperament. But then you'd tune the instruments based on that too, so it didn't sound too jarring.