C Minor

C Minor, on the other hand, seems to involve two entirely different hands than C Major. Witness Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata, his Opus 111, his Third Piano Concerto, his C Minor Variations. Or Chopin's Prelude and Bach's Passacaglia. The simple addition of two flats flips a flippant bit into an obituary, a thread into a threnody.

    More sharps or flats lead naturally to trouble. In the case of D Flat, which uses four flats, the extra flats pillow the notes, which fall like feathers into the keybeds between the headrests. D Flat it is the country of fallen hopes, falling leaves, falling cadences, like the falling left hand in both the Nocturne (track 1) and the Consolation (track 12), like the rise and fall of baby breath in the Berceuse (track 10), or the frenetically rising and falling sigh of Un Sospiro (track 8).