August 23, 2022

Music in F-sharp Major

Music in F-sharp Major is the key of transcendence and radiance. It sometimes reminds me of a cold, sparkling spring. Or a futuristic icy coldness, a whimsical strangeness. This key is associated with frozen blue to me.

F-sharp major consists of the pitches F♯, G♯, A♯, B, C♯, D♯, and E♯. Its key signature has six sharps. Its relative minor is D-sharp minor (or enharmonically E-flat minor) and its parallel minor is F-sharp minor. Its direct enharmonic, G-flat major, contains the same number of flats in its key signature.

This is a rather difficult key to play in. Like G-flat major, F-sharp major is rarely used in orchestral music, other than in passing. The only two symphonies I know are Mahler's Tenth Symphony and Korngold's Symphony Op. 40. The key was however the favorite tonality of Olivier Messiaen, who used it repeatedly throughout his work to express his most transcendent moods, most notably in the Turangalîla-Symphonie (which, however, is not in any fixed key).

In chamber music we have Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 14. The key is more common in piano music. Some examples include the Nocturne in F-sharp major, Op. 15, No. 2 by Chopin, as well as his Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op. 60. Among Grieg's Lyric Pieces we find the well-known "To Spring" Op. 43 No. 6 in F-sharp major. The Fourth Piano Sonata by Alexander Scriabin is also in F sharp. Liszt was apparently fond of F-sharp major, writing uplifting while meditative pieces like "Les jeux d'eaux à la villa d'este" from Anées de Pèlerinage III, S.163 and "Bénediction de Dieu dans la Solitude" from the set Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses S.173 in this key.

Characteristic Music in F-sharp Major

Frederic Chopin, Nocturne in F-sharp major Op 15, No. 2

Chopin's fifth nocturne is in A–B–A form, F-sharp major, 2/4 time. The first section, marked Larghetto, features an intricate, elaborately ornamental melody over an even quaver bass. The abundant use of arpeggios creates a sense of fluidity. The piano's abilities are freely employed, including the use of ornaments in a chromatic descending progression. The second section, in C-sharp major, labeled doppio movimento (double speed), resembles a scherzo with dotted quaver-semi quaver melody, semiquavers in a lower voice in the right hand, and large jumps in the bass. The final section is a shortened version of the first (14 bars rather than 24) with characteristic cadenzas and elaboration, finishing with an arpeggio on F-sharp major, falling at first, then dying away.

Many consider this nocturne to be the best of the opus, stating that its musical maturity matches some of his later nocturnes." "The return of the heavenly opening theme... touches one like a benediction." It is a piece that is played relatively frequently in concerts.

Played by Irene Veneziano



Frederic Chopin, Barcarolle in F sharp major Op. 60

The Barcarolle in F-sharp major was composed between autumn of 1845 and summer 1846, three years before Chopin's death. This barcarolle (a stylized "gondola song") is a typical salonesque genre composition written in a compellingly romantic and lilting style. The work is in a quiet 12/8 time signature. Technically, the piece consists of a constant continuous accompaniment in the left hand, with the large leaps from the bass note sometimes striking, an accompaniment depicting the swaying of the gondola, with the right hand playing the melody, with technically demanding variations. Many of the technical figures for the right hand are thirds and sixths, while the left features very long reaches over an octave. Its middle section is in A major, and this section's second theme is recapitulated near the piece's end in F-sharp.

This is one of Chopin's last major compositions, along with his Polonaise-Fantasie, Op. 61. It is often considered to be one of his more demanding compositions. Chopin played the work during his very last recital in Paris in 1848, (the year before his death in 1849).

Played by Aimi Kobayashi.


Franz Liszt, Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude

Harmonies poétiques et religieuses (Poetic and Religious Harmonies) is a 10-piece cycle of piano works written by Franz Liszt at Woronińce (Voronivtsi, the Polish-Ukrainian country estate of Liszt’s friend Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein) in 1847, and published in 1853. The pieces are inspired by the poetry of Alphonse de Lamartine. In Liszt’s engagement with this poetry there is a strong intensity and urgent earnestness that one doesn’t find in Liszt's other piano work. It forms a unique admixture of mysticism, exultation and contemplation.

‘Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude’, along with the fourth piece in the collection, is regarded as a masterpiece that symbolizes the religious and introspective side of Liszt. It is spacious, questing, yet disarmingly intimate. The piece has a beautiful and meditative F-sharp major theme that is transformed for a while, followed by a light D major and a gentle B-flat major section, and eventually ends with a passionate uplifting of the first theme that returns. In the concluding section, the motif's antiphonal form is interspersed with recollections, and then quietly disappears.

Played by Cyprien Katsaris



Alexander Scriabin, Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp Major, op. 30

For this work Scriabin wrote a program: a poem describing flight to a distant star. It reflects the startling new philosophies he was imbibing in 1903. The sonata consists of two movements, Andante and Prestissimo volando ("very rapidly, as if flying"), and is one of Scriabin's shortest piano sonatas. It is generally considered to be the beginning of Scriabin's middle period due to the newly mystical sonorities and tonal ambiguity of the first movement. It is one of the most performed of Scriabin's sonatas.

The sonata is written in a post-Romantic style, similar to Scriabin's other works of the time. The first movement, sensual in its languid expression, is monothematic (based on a single theme). The second movement, celebratory and climactic, starts attacca right after the Andante movement. A more Romantic idea is the use of cyclic form in restating the Andante’s main theme (dolcissimo) as the ecstatic climax of the Prestissimo volando movement (Focosamente, giubiloso).

Played by Kenny Broberg.



Gustav Mahler, Symphony No 10 in F-sharp Major

No 10 is Mahler's last, uncompleted symphony, and is often left out of recordings of the full symphonies. In the past, I developed the mistaken idea that Mahler just left a series of sketches. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Not only is there a complete draft score, Mahler also already scored movements 1 and 3. A draft score is not a final score - Mahler used to change many details while scoring - but close enough to say that what we have of the 10th symphony is true Mahler, and not Deryk Cooke (the musicologist who with several collaborators made the performing version which is usually played today). Moreover, the 10th symphony also is more positive than the "dark night of the soul" of the 9th Symphony. Instead of plunging farther into a preoccupation with death, Mahler was clearly moving again towards a more vitally creative attitude. The 10th Symphony has an extraordinary structural balance: two Adagios frame two scherzos, which themselves frame a sort of intermezzo called "Purgatorio." The symphony starts in death-haunted nostalgia, moves to forced happiness and unease, until finally achieving serenity in the finale.

1st movement. Andante - Adagio in F-sharp major, 4/4 time, free sonata form
The movement begins with a nihilistic and enigmatic introductory theme by the violas. The key signature is F-sharp major, but the viola melody is ambiguous and sounds like F-sharp minor. Soon, the adagio proper arrives, with a warm melody introduced by the violins. Mahler works through these two contrasting groups of material over the course of the movement, building to a grand climax - which in turn collapses into a dissonant orchestral shriek. The movement ends with an extended orchestral passage, inward, mysterious, and questing, bringing no more than temporary respite.

2nd movement Scherzo. F-sharp major in flat time. Free form in two parts.
The defiant, sardonic music of the scherzo - dominated by winds and brass - alternates with more relaxed, graceful Ländler passages introduced by the strings.
The movement ends in F-sharp major.

3rd movement Purgatorio (Purgatory). Allegretto moderato in B flat minor, 2/4 time, three part form
In Mahler's score, the words "Purgatorio (Purgatory) or Inferno (Inferno)" are written, and there is a mark where the "or Inferno" part was erased. It is said that Mahler named this movement Purgatorio, either based on a betrayal poem written by a friend of Mahler or on Dante's Divine Comedy. At about four minutes in brief three-part form, it is the shortest movement Mahler wrote, and some believe that it was intended to be expanded further. This short, pastoral movement has the important function of introducing the theme of the last two movements.

4th movement. Allegro pesante (Without haste) in E minor, 3/4 time.
Another powerful and intense scherzo, ABABABA, and the two parts intertwine. Mahler wrote on the first page of the movement, "The devil dances with me. Madness haunts me." It is in fact a sort of distorted waltz, which ends with a muffled drum stroke.

5th movement. Finale. Langsam, schwer.
A long, serene melody, introduced by the flute and then taken up by the strings, rises from the desolation. The drum strokes return, this time introducing a concentrated allegro that builds to a return of the lacerating dissonance from the first movement. Only out of the wreckage of this total collapse does Mahler achieve a sort of serenity. The flute theme returns and unfolds into a tranquil rhapsody, still tinged with sorrow.

Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.




Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No 14 in F-sharp Major

The Fourteenth Quartet is held to be the most accessible of Shostakovich’s late quartets. The F-Sharp Major Quartet was begun at the home of Sir Benjamin Britten (a composer greatly admired by Shostakovich) during a visit to England in the summer of 1972, and was completed the following April in Copenhagen. Its key of F sharp major is traditionally associated with transcendence and radiance and this almost whimsical work is the most accessible of Shostakovich's darker late quartets.

The work consists of three movements of similar duration; two animated movements flanking an adagio movement reminiscent of Beethoven.

A clue to the work’s content is the fact that it is dedicated to Sergei Shirinsky, the cellist of the Beethoven Quartet. The Beethoven Quartet had premiered all of Shostakovich’s Quartets with the exception of the First. They were his "instrument" much as the Schuppanzigh Quartet had been Beethoven's in the presentation of his Quartets. Shirinsky was featured in the 14th by the numerous solo passages given to the cello; note the droll opening theme, as well as duets for cello and lst violin. In the third movement, Shostakovich quotes music from his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934). This was the work which, despite a successful two year run, became the focus of a hit piece in Pravda in 1936, precipitating the first of Shostakovich's serious difficulties with the Stalin regime. However, the work returned to the Soviet stage some twenty-five years later. The music quoted in this Quartet is the romantic theme associated with Katerina’s lover Seryozha, an affectionate form of the name Sergei.

Jerusalem Quartet



[Incorporates parts from the relevant Japanese, English, Dutch and German articles from Wikipedia]