A-flat minor: Difference between revisions
No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
No edit summary Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
||
Line 15: | Line 15: | ||
| seventh_pitch=G{{music|flat}} |
| seventh_pitch=G{{music|flat}} |
||
}} |
}} |
||
[[Image:A-flat natural minor scale ascending and descending.png|thumb|A-flat natural minor scale ascending and descending. {{audio|G-sharp natural minor scale ascending and descending.mid|Play}}]] |
|||
[[Image:A-flat harmonic minor scale ascending and descending.png|thumb|A-flat harmonic minor scale ascending and descending. {{audio|A-flat harmonic minor scale ascending and descending.mid|Play}}]] |
|||
[[Image:A-flat melodic minor scale ascending and descending.png|thumb|A-flat melodic minor scale ascending and descending. {{audio|A-flat melodic minor scale ascending and descending.mid|Play}}]] |
|||
'''A-flat minor''' is a [[minor scale]] based on A-flat, consisting of the pitches [[A♭ (musical note)|A{{music|flat}}]], [[B♭ (musical note)|B{{music|flat}}]], [[C♭ (musical note)|C{{music|flat}}]], [[D♭ (musical note)|D{{music|flat}}]], [[E♭ (musical note)|E{{music|flat}}]], [[F♭ (musical note)|F{{music|flat}}]], and [[G♭ (musical note)|G{{music|flat}}]]. For the harmonic minor, the G{{music|flat}} is raised to G{{music|natural}}. Its [[key signature]] has seven flats (''see below:'' [[#Scales and keys|Scales and keys]]). |
'''A-flat minor''' is a [[minor scale]] based on A-flat, consisting of the pitches [[A♭ (musical note)|A{{music|flat}}]], [[B♭ (musical note)|B{{music|flat}}]], [[C♭ (musical note)|C{{music|flat}}]], [[D♭ (musical note)|D{{music|flat}}]], [[E♭ (musical note)|E{{music|flat}}]], [[F♭ (musical note)|F{{music|flat}}]], and [[G♭ (musical note)|G{{music|flat}}]]. For the harmonic minor, the G{{music|flat}} is raised to G{{music|natural}}. Its [[key signature]] has seven flats (''see below:'' [[#Scales and keys|Scales and keys]]). |
Revision as of 11:18, 22 October 2015
![]() | |
Relative key | C♭ major enharmonic: B major |
---|---|
Parallel key | A♭ major |
Dominant key | E♭ minor enharmonic: D♯ minor |
Subdominant | D♭ minor enharmonic: C♯ minor |
Enharmonic | G♯ minor |
Component pitches | |
A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭, F♭, G♭ |
A-flat minor is a minor scale based on A-flat, consisting of the pitches A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭, F♭, and G♭. For the harmonic minor, the G♭ is raised to G♮. Its key signature has seven flats (see below: Scales and keys).
Its relative major is C-flat major (or, enharmonically, B major), and its parallel major is A-flat major. Its direct enharmonic equivalent is G-sharp minor.
Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with accidentals as necessary.
Although A-flat minor occurs in modulation in works in other keys, it is only rarely used as the principal key of a piece of music. Some well-known uses of the key in classical and romantic piano music include:
- The Funeral March in Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12, Op. 26.
- An early section of the last movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 31, Op. 110 (although the key signature of this section uses only 6 flats, not 7).
- The Adagio of Friedrich Kalkbrenner's Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 127, although it is written with a four-flat key signature and uses accidentals to indicate the minor mode.
- The first piece "Aime-moi" ("Love me") from Charles-Valentin Alkan's Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique
- Johannes Brahms's Fugue for organ (c. 1857).
- Max Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, Op. 88a (although at least one two-piano transcription of this uses a 6-flat signature, similarly to the Op. 110 Beethoven example).
- The Evocación from Book I of Isaac Albéniz's Iberia.
- Leoš Janáček uses it for his Violin Sonata and the organ solo of his Glagolitic Mass.
- The opening of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird.
- Moritz Moszkowski used it for his piano etude, Op. 72 No. 13.
- Franz Liszt's original version of "La campanella" from Grandes études de Paganini, which was subsequently rewritten in G-sharp minor.
- In Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony, there is a particularly aggressive restatement of the introduction of the third movement in A-flat minor.[1]
It is also used in Frederick Loewe's score to the 1956 musical play My Fair Lady; the Second Servants' Chorus is set in A-flat minor (the preceding and following choruses being a semitone lower and higher respectively).
More often, pieces in a minor mode that have A-flat's pitch as tonic are notated in the enharmonic key, G-sharp minor, because of G-sharp's appreciably simpler key signature. As a result, only works expressly notated as such may reasonably be considered to be in A-flat minor.
In some scores, the A♭ minor key signature in the bass clef is written with the flat for the F on the second line from the top.[nb 1]
Scales and keys
Notes
- ^ An example of this is the bass clef staff of the harp parts in the Jupiter movement of Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets.[2]