Hi,
I'm doing my best to learn some theory having ignored it for most of my musical life. I'm glad I'm doing this but occasionally I come across something which stumps me.
I'm reading lots and also picking pieces to learn and understand.
Adagio in D from the movie Sunshine is one of these. Obviously according to the title it's in D minor. I've just started working on the intro and I've got a bunch of chords the last of which (It is right though) obviously isn't in D minor.
this must be a hole in my currently beginners understanding of theory as there's no way the title would say D minor if it wasn't

1st 4 chords
Em (GBE) CM (GCE) GM (GBD) ???(F#AD)

Hang on that last chord says Em. Obviously D minor has D, E, F, G, A, B♭, C, D no F#. Parallel is D major that has an F# but no C. Relative is F Major no F# there... I've read that it's fairly common to to use the Major 5th Chord instead of the Minor 5th chord in a Minor piece, so is this last Chord Actually a AM (Instead of Am) inversion leading back to the Tonic on the next pass, therefore following this tradition/peculiarity?

Edit for stupidity those notes aren't AM but could they be borrowed from AM scale to have the same effect?

/confused!

The confusion is understandable. This is in E minor. Maybe he composed it in D and raised it for the film or something.

There is an idea of the leading tone a half-step below the tonic having a strong pull to the tonic in melody. So your typical dominant chord in E minor would be B D# F# with that raised D# leading to E. With the D chord here D F# A obviously that note is not raised. So it is a little different way to get back to the tonic. But not too crazy in this day and age.

Hi,
Thanks for the response. It actually being in E minor certainly makes more sense, to my inexperienced mind. That would give a chord progression of 1,6,3,7 as opposed to in D minor resolving to a Major Tonic Chord 2,7,5,1M

I'll continue working through in E minor and see if that falls apart.