pieces which start in major key, but end in minor?

[stevie]

very rare, to my knowledge

even most pieces that start in minor end in major, at least before romanticism.

[Waldszenen]

Chopin's Ballade No. 2 comes to mind immediately.

[mlsmithz]

There was a thread to similar effect here a few months ago (look at the last post on the page); there certainly aren't many pieces which begin in major but end in minor but they are out there.  Chopin's Ballade No.2 is an obvious example; so are Schubert's Impromptu Op.90 No.2, Brahms' Piano Trio No.1, Brahms' Rhapsody Op.119 No.4, Mendelssohn's Symphony No.4, Alkan's Etude Op.35 No.10, Alkan's Prelude Op.31 No.13, and Shostakovich's String Quartet No.2.  A somewhat more obscure example is Massenet's piano concerto, which has a first movement in E-flat major but, I believe, a finale in C minor.

[allthumbs]

Greetings

Chopin's Nocturne in B major, Op.32, No.1 also comes to mind.

However, I've heard recordings where the piece ends with the B major chord (with the D sharp).

Does anyone have the definitive answer as to Chopin' intentions here?

Cheers

allthumbs

 

[JCarey]

Mendelssohn's Andante and Rondo Capriccioso in E Major

Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum

[Etude]

Sorabji's Toccata no. 1

[prometheus]

Does that piece even end on a tonic chord? Because it doesn't sound like one. Minor dominant?

[mrchops10]

Chopin's 4th Ballade also switches minor after a major introduction. Looks like Chopin's a popular one here. Also, Tchaikovsky's great piano trio as a large second mov't that starts in A major, but the final variation and recap of the first mov't (sometimes lumped together as a sort of "third mov't") return to the first mov't's key of a minor.

[mlsmithz]

I discussed the Chopin Ballade No.4 as an example of a piece which begins in major and ends in minor with my teacher once, but he told me that the introduction is really in C major as the dominant of F minor rather than in F major - a bit like the lead-in to the secondary theme of Ballade No.3.  Similarly, although the opening of Ballade No.1 appears to be in A-flat major, it functions as a Neapolitan sixth opening for the eventual home key of G minor.  I suppose they could be argued either way, but there's no such ambiguity in Ballade No.2. (Interestingly enough, as is moderately well-known, Schumann, the Ballade's dedicatee, claimed that when Chopin performed the piece for him for the first time, the final chord was F major.  Whether Chopin was simply following his usual pattern of playing whatever he wanted as long as it included the major ideas and some key passages or was still in the process of writing the piece and decided to conclude it in A minor after having performed it for Schumann I'm not sure.)

The finales of a number of operas, particularly from the late 1800s, also move from major to minor if they end tragically - sometimes the key signature does not even change (two examples which leap to mind are 'La Traviata', which ends with the key signature of D-flat major but ends in the tonic minor, and 'Il Trovatore', which follows a similar trend but with E-flat rather than D-flat).

[mlsmithz]

And also, I don't know if this quite qualifies, but Medtner's Canzona matinata and Sonata tragica, Op.38 Nos.4 and 5, are meant to be played without a break; the first piece is in G major, the second in C minor (and there's no major resolution).